Two incidents in recent days demonstrate how this government goes about its business. On Thursday the Home Office produced estimates of the number of illegal immigrants in Britain. The total, it said, was between 310,000 and 570,000. A few weeks ago, when the country went to the polls, no such official estimate was available. When this newspaper reported in April that internal Home Office estimates suggesting there were some 500,000 illegal immigrants, our story was attacked from every official direction. Tony Blair, asked repeatedly by Jeremy Paxman about the number of illegals, said not only that he did not have a figure but insisted that it would be impossible to produce one.

We now know that the prime minister ordered officials to draw up the estimate. It stretches plausibility to breaking point to argue that what was impossible for the Home Office a few weeks ago has suddenly become possible. What has changed? Before the election a figure for the number of illegals was politically embarrassing because it showed that the government had lost control of our borders. Now it is convenient because it makes the case for identity cards. As Patrick Mercer, a Conservative home affairs spokesman, effectively stated: “The Sunday Times ran a very clear and accurate story” that was “comprehensively rubbished” and the prime minister “misled us for political gain”.

Then Charles Clarke, the home secretary, tried his own inimitable brand of rubbishing. A study by the London School of Economics said the government’s ID card scheme would be much more expensive than officially estimated and possibly unsafe in law. Mr Clarke said it was “technically incompetent” and contained figures that were “simply mad”. He accused the LSE of running a campaign against ID cards. Behind the scenes the Home Office has been pressuring the university to withdraw the study in a way that Sir Howard Davies, its director, has described as “bullying and intimidating behaviour”. So there you have it. Our elected government lies and it bullies. QED.