When the then home secretary John Reid declared his department to be “unfit for purpose” it was split in two. The two halves were then inherited by Theresa May and Ken Clarke.

Clearly not the most compatible of cabinet colleagues, they have been forced into common cause by the strength of the opposition to their pet projects. Ken Clarke’s justice and security bill seeks to keep secret from us whatever they deem appropriate in sensitive trials, while Theresa May’s communications bill would make sure that we have no secrets from them. Read the full story

Last Tuesday Ken Clarke reignited the debate on the causes of the urban riots. Writing in the ‘Guardian’ he said that the riots were an outburst of outrageous behaviour by the criminal classes.

In an echo of John Reid’s classification of the home office as “unfit for purpose” he blamed the riots on a “broken penal system” that has failed to rehabilitate a group of hardcore offenders he describes as the “criminal classes”. He said: “It’s not yet been widely recognised, but Read the full story