CHARLES CLARKE gave a tough-talking statement to the House yesterday on the immigration system. He was tough on immigration and tough on the causes of immigration. He was tough on people with low skills and tough on those with high skills. He is tough on everybody, it seemed, but himself.

His skill level has yet to be identified but surely it cannot be right that he should be excluded from his tough new world. If we are going to have an Australian-style points system for immigrants, then we must have one for politicians too. This means that it is time to be tough on Charles Clarke and tough on the causes of Charles Clarke. We must take a robust approach to people who offer five-year plans that contain no fives, no years and only tiny baby plans.

Actually, that was not tough enough. These are not baby plans for they have not yet been born. They are not even teensy mewling kittens with their eyes still glued shut. They are wishes and ideas. It was a Dusty Springfield “Wishing and Hoping” kind of statement, but she sang it so much better.

Mr Clarke seemed to acknowledge that things were not entirely thought through when he announced: “I commend this strategy to the House.” Well, we all know what happens to strategies. Perhaps Mr Clarke should have just been honest and admitted: “Look, here’s all the stuff about immigration that I’m thinking about at the moment while taking my daily bubble bath.”

The Tories were ridiculously cocky throughout, heckling and catcalling like a bunch of women at a male stripper hen night. It is the first time that they have acted like a real Opposition for ages. Tory MPs were so impressed by their own behaviour that they failed, for much of the time, to ask anything relevant.

Their leader for the day was David Davis, the wannabe SAS commando who would abseil into the Commons if he were allowed. He was more arrogant than normal, which is hard to achieve, and claimed credit for everything in the non-plan. By the end, he was in full rant: “We have had eight years of incompetence, cover-ups, deceit, missed targets and unmet promises. This is the latest headline initiative from a panic-stricken Government in the run-up to a general election. We have heard it before. Why should we believe any of it now?”

Actually, we have heard all that before too but not with such conviction for a while. A few pipsqueak Labour MPs asked Mr Clarke not to talk tough. One urged him not to be drawn into a mine’s-bigger-than-yours contest. Mr Clarke announced that he would not. No one believed him.

Finally, a Tory MP came up with the obvious question: what was the timetable for all of this? Mr Clarke hoicked up his trousers for the thirty-fifth time that day. Actually, Mr Clarke needs to take note: no trouser hoicking is allowed under the new points system. If he doesn’t change his ways he will have to go. There is no doubt, however, that he is highly skilled in the political art of waffling. He explained, very slowly, that different things would take different lengths of time. It was hard to say what these might be. For instance we would have to wait until 2008 for a finger-printing system (stamp pads being very hard to find these days). He ended with this ringing statement: “As of today, we are moving forward.”

Another Tory asked what all of this would cost. Mr Clarke, still hoicking wildly, ignored the question and waffled on about how some things will require primary legislation. “We start work on this immediately,” he announced. On what, exactly, we may never know.

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