03 May 2006

Not really good enough?

You can read Mr Clarke's statement here.

If you read it carefully, the following may emerge. Some 38 of the (initial) 79 most serious cases are still not yet "under control", which presumably means that they are walking the streets, with neither the Home office nor the police knowing where they are, even although it is a week since the details were passed to the police. Nor is it clear how many of the rest of the 1,023 are "under control", even although consideration of deportation may have been completed in 554 cases, with deportation action "being pursued" in 446 cases. It's not exactly an encouraging picture.

As for the proposed extension of the categories of criminals who would be automatically considered for deportation, it is not my impression that Mr Clarke intends to challenge the ECHR or any of the other arrangements whereby deportation to certain states is a virtual no-no. Nor is it clear that such an extension would add significantly to the Home Secretary's powers of deportation - see here:
"Shami Chakrabarti, director of human rights group Liberty, argued that new legislation was unnecessary.
"It is part of the essence of immigration control that home secretaries have enjoyed the broadest of discretions to deport people who are non-conducive to the public good," she told Today."
So, is Mr Clarke just playing games?

2 comments:

BondWoman said...

No, he's pandering to the gallery in the week of English local elections where there is (a) a risk of meltdown for labour and (b) a significant risk of increased BNP vote. Have you seen the Leal case?

Dave said...

I agree your first point. As for your second, I read your post on Bondbloke earlier.

But I rather doubt that anything Clarke says today will affect the vote tomorrow.

All in all, it seems to me a rather shoddy piece of work by Clarke.