Recap

I didn't get around to mentioning yesterday about Charles Clarke, Home Secretary, accidentally letting out over 1,000 prisoners instead of deporting them. Well that was careless wasn't it. Apparently all but about 120 of these prisoners, which include murderers, rapists, paedophiles, and drug dealers, are now missing somewhere in the UK. I know what you're thinking, I made this up right? Nope, click here.

So lets have a recap of Labour cabinet ministers currently in the smeg shall we:

Charles Clarke is already fielding calls for his resignation after accidentally freeing over 1,000 convicts by mistake instead of deporting them, see above.

Tessa Jowell is currently in all sorts of trouble over her lawyer husband's very dodgy looking business deals. Jowell was actually implicated in these dodgy deals when she agreed to remortgage their home in a move to launder/move/hide huge payments that may or may not have been a bribe from the former Italian PM, currently being investigated for fraud/corruption himself, allegedly. Her defence, "I didn't know what I was signing". That's reasuring from a cabinet minister isn't it.

Patricia Hewitt is frantically trying to recover from the ridiculous comments she made this week about the health service enjoying its "best ever year" despite a deficit of millions, thousands of proposed job cuts, and threatened industrial action.

Oh, just about everyone, including the PM has been implicated in the cash for peerages row that just won't go away.

John Prescot, deputy Prime Minister, has just been caught with his hand up his secretary's skirt. Madam, what on earth were you thinking?

Margaret Beckett, environment secretary is being urged to resign over the issue of overdue subsidy payments to farmers who may not receive them in time. I don't even understand this one myself.

Ruth Kelly, Education secretary is at the heart of a row going on about MPs claiming huge expenses on second homes in their constituencies. I have a feeling someone else was implicated in this one but I can't remember who it was.

It makes you wonder just how many clean cabinet ministers we actually have. If Charles Clarke has to go, how many Home Secretaries will that be? It's getting to look like the Defence Against the Dark Arts job. I can't think of any mud sticking to Gordon Brown currently. I guess he's being extra careful since he's next in line to the throne.