Another day in la-la land. Smile, please!
John Reid has confirmed that the Home Office will be split up and pass responsibility for prisons, sentencing and probation to a new Ministry of Justice. The Home Secretary said the department was being divided to meet the "challenges of today's world". Mr Reid told MPs: "The Home Office will be refocused towards the realities of today's world and priorities of today's people."So, it's going to be one of the Home Office's remits to fight a "battle of ideas". Sounds rather like it will be joining other departments, then, (Education, Health, Culture) in waging ideological warfare on behalf of the il-liberal elite.
He said the changes were designed to produce a "step change" in … "winning the central battle, which is the struggle for values and ideas".
The Home Office has lurched from crisis to crisis over the past 12 months. Earlier this year it emerged that more than 27,000 case files on Britons who had committed crimes abroad, including rape and murder, had not been entered on the police computer. When he took over last year, Mr Reid said there were so many problems with the immigration directorate that it was "not fit for purpose".
When it was set up in 1782, the Home Office was run by a staff of about 20. Today, it has 35,000 employees with headquarters in a brand new £300 million building in Westminster. (Daily Telegraph)
I find the use of the word "justice" a bit sinister. See also here about courts being rebranded as "justice centres".
