THE Blair Government’s luck may, at last, have run out: not primarily because of policies, but because of the appearance of incompetence.

Yesterday’s disclosures about the failure to deport foreign prisoners after their release is a severe embarrassment for Charles Clarke, another example of the law of unexpected horrors that afflicts all home secretaries. Suddenly, some event will occur — a prison escape, a terrorist attack or immigration problems — that grabs the headlines. In virtually every case, the Home Secretary cannot be held directly responsible. He did not give orders or initiate policies that led to the problems, nor was he aware of information that could have prevented them.

Only when there is a direct connection between what a minister has said or done and the disaster is there a case for demanding a minister’s resignation. Otherwise, the familiar game of ministerial scalp hunting is usually unjustified and fatuous. Talk of the demise of “honourable” resignations is not only historically unfounded but usually cant.

What matters is that the minister immediately admits the problem, takes remedial action and informs Parliament and the public. Mr Clarke has gone only part of the way towards fulfilling this condition so far. He should have made an oral, as opposed to just a written, Commons statement, as he will probably have to do today.

Mr Clarke’s predicament is similar to Ruth Kelly’s this year over teachers on the sex offenders list. She knew nothing about the individual cases, nor could she reasonably have been expected to do so. What matters was that she immediately put in place new procedures.

But there are also more ambiguous cases where there is not just incompetence at an operating level, but where problems can be traced to specific policy decisions. That has been clearly true of the Child Support Agency, although the origins go back more than a decade and a half. It is also true of the continuing overpayment of tax credits, identified again yesterday by the Public Accounts Committee, which can be blamed not just on computer failures but also on the design of the whole system.

There are only so many times that Dawn Primarolo can say that the Treasury is trying to sort it out, even though there is broad support for the aim of helping poorer families and children.

The NHS funding problems are a mixture of administrative failure by some local trusts and a new payments system with greater transparency deliberately introduced by ministers. Tony Blair and Patricia Hewitt are correct that there have been improvements in many areas of the NHS and in rejecting calls by the unions and the Left to go slow on reform. It is not the direction of reform that is wrong, but a failure sufficiently to anticipate the inevitable transitional problems.

On the substance of home affairs and health, the Government is in line with the public’s views. This has been shown by the recent exchanges between Mr Blair and Mr Clarke and their media critics over civil liberties. But competence also matters. What really damages a Government is the appearance of not being in charge of prisoners, asylum-seekers or events.

Times Recommends

• Swine flu vaccine for all as drug rushed through
• Artificial sperm and the race to build a baby
• BBC jets out stars to tout for prizes