BRITAIN: A badly bruised home secretary, Charles Clarke, was clinging to office last night in the escalating row over the release of 1,023 foreign prisoners who should have been considered for deportation. Frank Millar, London Editor, reports.
Mr Clarke's difficulties mounted on a dismal day for Labour which also saw deputy prime minister John Prescott admit to an affair with one of his secretaries and health secretary Patricia Hewitt heckled and booed at a nurses' conference.
Pressure was building on Mr Clarke to finally quit - having twice offered to do so - after prime minister Tony Blair said he had not known until yesterday of 288 prisoners released on Mr Clarke's watch although ministers were warned about the problem last July.
Mr Blair and Mr Clarke were also challenged to disclose who knew what and when about the fiasco as it emerged that police were handed the first names from a list of 916 freed prisoners still to be tracked only on Tuesday.
MPs on all sides were appalled to learn that convicted murderers, rapists and paedophiles were among those released from 1999 to March this year in what Mr Clarke acknowledged was an appalling administrative blunder for which he apologised to the House.
During heated exchanges in the Commons, Conservative leader David Cameron accused Mr Clarke of neglect of a government's duty to public safety, presiding over "systemic failure", and misleading the public about the scale of the problem.
Charging Mr Blair with defending "incompetent ministers, even when he doesn't know the facts", Mr Cameron demanded Mr Clarke's head, insisting he could not give the home office the leadership it required. Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell, meanwhile, compounded Mr Blair's discomfort, asking: "How can the prime minister not ask for his resignation?"
With just a week to go to polling in the English local elections, Mr Blair also saw Ms Hewitt suffer the humiliation of being booed, heckled and slow-hand-clapped to a halt during a speech to 2,000 delegates attending the Royal College of Nursing conference in Bournemouth.
And to complete a triple whammy for Labour, deputy prime minister John Prescott told the Daily Mirror he now regretted having had an affair with one of his secretaries "some time ago", and asked that he and his wife Pauline - who was "devastated" by the news - be allowed to "get on with our lives together". Downing Street said the affair between Mr Prescott (67) and diary secretary Tracey Temple (43) was a "private matter" and that Mr Prescott continued to play "an absolutely vital role" in the government.
That loyalist line was replayed by Mr Clarke on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, at the start of a long and difficult day for him. He confirmed that Mr Blair had declined his offered resignation when told of the blunder in the handling of foreign prisoners before Christmas, and said his job was to rectify the problems in his "dysfunctional" department.
Having earlier suggested resignation had not been an issue, Downing Street later confirmed that Mr Clarke had again offered his resignation on Tuesday afternoon, adding: "The prime minister agreed with the home secretary that the best thing was for him to sort it out."
However, Labour MP Dr Ian Gibson said that although Mr Clarke might well survive until a cabinet reshuffle expected after the local elections, "events like this can turn things around".