Back in the days of the Iraq War then foreign secretary Jack Straw did a masterly job for his master Tony Blair, snaffling the best efforts of John Humphrys and the like to pin the Government down on the illegality of the war by talking interminably about the finer points of UN resolutions.
Now lawyer Straw is justice secretary, a new job, and the Probation Service comes within his remit. This morning on Today Evan Davis, who’s getting more fierce by the week as he has to listen to all this bullshit, bearded him with cutting the service’s funds, which may have been one of the reasons why a released prisoner who should have been under supervision was able to slaughter two French students in south London.
Straw chose to come out fighting, probably realising that, as he was on before eight o’ clock he would only have to keep this stuff up for a few minutes.
Stuff and nonsense he said, we’re not cutting the budget just keeping something back for a rainy day. And this had nothing to do with the crime in question anyway.
David stuck to his guns, the Probation Service has indeed has its budget cut which Straw knows full well, and urbane Jack seemed to come within a whisker of hanging up.
But why lie when the evidence is in front of you?