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| "I won't resign!", says Theresa May - she may though |
Theresa May is the Home Secretary. That basically means she is the cabinet member responsible for seeing that homeland security works efficiently and effectively. With budget cuts looming all around her like circling vultures, she and her civil servants (plus those at arms length in "agencies") came up with a
wheeze to save money. Some ordinary looking foreigners could be waved in, "Welcome to Britain" style, whilst those more dodgy looking foreigners could be properly screened. As with a lot of the whims and fancies of executive government, the plan went pear-shaped and it all began to work far less effectively and certainly not efficiently. The opposition (not all on the Labour benches!) got wind of it. Mrs May sat still and said it was all the fault of her chief minion Brodie Clark, head of the UK Border Agency. He was suspended. Mrs May got the backing of David Cameron, she then muttered on about how sensitive immigration was for the public at large, and thought she'd carry on as normal. The opposition clamoured a bit more, Brodie resigned in a huff saying "it was all her idea!", and the foreigners get to have a field day, in laughs at our expenses, at least.
Mr. Brodie says, in his statement regarding his resignation, "The home secretary implies that I relaxed the controls in favour of queue management. I did not. Despite pressure to reduce queues, including from ministers, I can never be accused of compromising security for convenience." He intends suing the government for constructive dismissal.
What I find hard to understand is that Mrs. May does not know which ports of entry are subject to these "relaxed" controls and how many there are. Surely she has meetings where she is briefed? I get the distinct impression that this is the same old Humpty Dumpty defence. Is she saying that because she did not actually confirm in writing that, say, ten airports could be used for experimental relaxing of the controls, that she did not discuss it? I think it smacks of disingenuous dialogue.
Maybe her political antennae have been given the same treatment as analogue TV signals. She needs to get digital. Immigration is a touchy subject. A politician with crossed wires is going haywire in a handcart. We need the truth. Whatever happened to transparency Mrs. May?
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