And I'm glad I left that department last September

To be honest it smacks of arrogance and/or incompetence (or a mixture) from UKBA/Home Office - they'd done it before and been knocked back by the courts and either didn't think they should look at the rest of the Points Based System or were too imcompetent to do so. And look where it's got us.

The whole system is so labyrinthine that putting it all in the rules was clearly impossible, so they went for the rules/guidance approach, without doing it properly or considering the consequences. The desire to make it all rules based came from years ago and I got a kicking, when there, for telling a senior manager that without a legislative slot it couldn't be done properly. Lo and behold they went ahead with easier, secondary legislation and made a complete Horlicks of it.

By the way, if you fancy a bit of light reading, and want to see how much of a mess they can make of writing rules, try the new "Appendix FM" in the immigration rules on the UKBA website. If you understand it, give me a call

just another facet of the omnishambles

From John Reid describing the Home Office as "not fit for purpose", it has got inexorably worse. Splitting it in two was thought a great wheeze but has led to no discernible improvements, all the two departments seem to do is point the finger at each other. It's difficult to think of the last Home Secretary that had even the slightest appearance of competence.

I have a little bit of sympathy for Home Secretary's, I think it's a horrible job to have. Even a perfectly competent Home Secretary will inevitably get a torrent of abuse at some point as they are held responsible for almost everything and anything that goes wrong in the country.

Having said that, you're right in that it's been a while since we've had a decent one! And the current one is bloody awful considering she's only been in the job for 2 years.