I have been tracking Mr Clarke in his capacity as Education Minister (not very carefully because who gives a damn - it makes no difference who is Ed Sec or what they do) in MY capacity as education blogger (www.brianmicklethwait.com/education/).

If he behaves as Home Sec as he has as Ed Sec, he will start off quite confidently, and then gradually get angrier and angrier as all his policies disappoint him, as well as disappointing everybody else of course.

Also his ears stick out to a quite extraordinary degree, far more even than those of Prince Charles. Alas, this is not the same as listening carefully.

He's just not as competent as Blunkett and also doesn't have the passion for it. He'll make mistakes and more importantly compromises. I *think* the fight just got a little easier.

I agree with the above two comments. Clarke is over-rated, in my view. Because he looks a bit of a thug and has a red face, he gives the impression of being "tough", and of course giving the right impression is 99 pct of the job requirement these days. He has not exactly covered himself with glory at the education dept.

Come on Pollard, write another book!

As, I think, it was Perry who said: We may be losing 1 ringwraith but Sauron still lives in Number 10.

The ringwraiths are replaceable. It's the heart of darkness that needs to be exorcised.

I am not entirely happy at having Fungus the Bogeyman as Home Secretary. Here comes the new boss, same as the old boss...

well done Pollard I say ..... now if only he would write a book about My Little Tony, maybe we can get rid of him as well

Well, the British Home Secretaryship has passed from the hands of a hysterical, weepy teenage girl to the hands of a thug. Am I alone in finding this astounding?

Extract from Society for Action Against Crime
So we now move from a Home Secretary who not once invited us to discuss what we believe can be done to really bring down violent crime; to his replacement - a man who only recently demonstrated his willingness to so distort a statement of Prince Charles as to completely reverse its true meaning. As Secretary of State for Education and Skills, Charles Clarke also failed to recognise that our schools have been churning out ever more criminals for years. This does not bode well for future crime levels.

We also note Charles Clarke’s equally untrue statement on becoming Home Secretary, that David Blunkett had done a fantastic job. Frankly, that is nothing but sentimental knee-jerk claptrap. Obviously, your Party’s idea on success against crime and ours are miles apart and it achieves nothing to try spinning David Blunkett as a successful Home Secretary when the truth is that he was a failure.

"Sauron still lives in Number 10"

Tony Sauron is not the problem, he is just a demonstration of the possibilities of the death of liberty within our current system. Unless his replacement returns the concept of liberty back into the system, it will be a case of the Thug is dead long live the Thug.

Unless we reassert our sovereignty over our own lives, nothing changes.

Charles Clarke spent a year as a guest of Fidel Castro...that sums him up for me.

Charlie Clark is just another ex-Student Union president career pol who never had a real job.

I heard rumour he was in the Communist Party in his errant youth as well, hardly a ringing endorsement if true.

Toryboy: Apparently true, according to Dead Men Left, who refers to him, somewhat too charitably, as a "bearded ex-Communist bruiser turned sharp-suited jug-eared Cabinet minister".