Sir, People get the government they deserve. Is this really what we deserve (leading article, April 27)?

We have a home secretary who releases dangerous criminals into the community. We have a health secretary who triumphantly says that the NHS has had its best year ever when trusts are in deficit and morale is at its lowest. We have an environment secretary who lectures on green issues and who uses the Queen’s Flight more than any other minister. We have a culture secretary who is a heartbeat away from financial scandal and we have an education secretary who did not know how many child abusers were still working in our schools but did not see that as an issue of public confidence. And now we have a deputy prime minister who admits to having an affair with his diary secretary, disregarding the feelings of his devastated wife.

Surely we deserve better than this from a prime minister who promised to be whiter than white?

GARY TERRETTA
Horsham, W Sussex

Sir, Is there now no issue over when government ministers should resign? It appears that they now expect to take the extra payment for the office but never wish to be accountable when it goes wrong.

In business, if it goes wrong and you are responsible then you go. As a retired member of the community I cannot afford this mismanagement — sweeping up afterwards always has a very high cost. Ministers must be made fully accountable for their departments and alongside them should be their civil servants. Failure should signal departure for the offenders.

IAN ALLAN
Leamington Spa, Warks

Sir, Events at the Home Office reveal a need for formal clarification of the relationship between ministers and their officials. The present Home Secretary and his immediate predecessor have made much of their efforts to rid the country of undesirable aliens and have denigrated the judiciary for a lack of co-operation.

Now we learn that when judges have recommended suitable candidates for deportation, the Home Office has often failed to act. Within the Home Office, the official responsible for ensuring co-ordination between prison and immigration authorities must be obvious, but is publicly anonymous. Indeed, David Blunkett, who might have been facing calls for his own resignation if he had not already gone twice, is quoted as blaming known officials. Ministers cannot be held responsible for everything but might be expected to take some interest in their hobby horses. If a minister remains in office after something as serious as this, perhaps it is time to end the myth of “ministerial responsibility” behind which so much maladministration hides.

J. M. AGAR
Leeds

Sir, Many of the shortcomings in work with foreign national prisoners had been highlighted by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons.

The Government is planning, in its Police and Justice Bill, to subsume the chief inspector’s office within a new inspectorate for justice, community safety and custody. While there is undoubted merit in improved collaboration between inspectorates, this could be taken forward by a joint secretariat and planning unit, without sacrificing the authority of a robust, independent chief inspector of prisons.

The messages of successive high profile prisons inspectors may not always have been palatable for ministers. They are, however, essential in contributing to order and justice in the closed world of incarceration.

GEOFF DOBSON
Deputy Director,
Prison Reform Trust

Sir, At Pentonville prison when I worked there in the Fifties, we kept a stout book called the discharge diary. When a prisoner was received we calculated the earliest date he could be released and this was entered in the diary. If the court had recommended that he be deported this also was entered and his reception and release dates were reported to the immigration department. We could then expect to receive a decision either to deport or not. If the diary showed a deportation case due for release shortly with no decision taken, the immigration department would be telephoned.

There needs to be some continuing communication between the immigration department and the prison, which ought to be easier if books are replaced with computers. These would also provide a record of who did what and when.

R. W. MOTT
RonaldMott@aol.com

Sir, Why imprison those who will be deported?

MICHAEL SARGENT
Sale, Cheshire

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