Portillo on Jacqui Smith

The concluding paragraphs to a brilliant column by Michael Portillo in today's The Sunday Times, linked here:

The home secretary still thinks nothing untoward occurred. Almost every day some new revelation makes her look incompetent or unprincipled or both. It is beyond human understanding how she can bear to go on. If she were a pet, she would be taken to the vet for a painless end. If she were a boxer, the fight would be stopped before she took more punishment. If she were lying between the trenches, some kind soul would deliver the coup de grâce.

In PC Wren’s novel Beau Geste the French legionnaires under siege in their fort prop up the corpses of their fallen colleagues on the battlements to try to impress the enemy with their numbers. The home secretary is still propped up in office, but her political life has ended.

You may feel sorry for her. That would be a compassionate response but an inappropriate one. The attempt to use the criminal law to punish those who embarrass ministers has been thwarted. Were it not so, this would no longer be a free country. Her humiliation is essential to keeping us safe. Mr Portillo might well have added that her resignation too, is now essential - I wonder why he did not.