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Reid defends UK home office
29/01/2007 13:29 - (SA)
London - British home secretary John Reid said on Monday he expected more problems to emerge from the home office but told interviewers it was not impossible to resolve them.
Reid told the BBC he would show "endurance and determination" as he tackled any fresh crisis at the sprawling department.
In a round of media interviews, Reid gave a robust defence
of his performance, saying he had inherited many problems such
as those involving foreign national prisoners or overseas
convictions when he took over as home secretary last year.
"If you renovate a house you start by taking the wallpaper
off. Only then do you discover more problems. That's what it is
like at the home office," he wrote in The Guardian.
He said being home secretary was his biggest challenge, but
"it isn't mission impossible."
"Judge me not on the challenges but on my response to them,"
he said.
In a comment directed at critics calling for his resignation, Reid said: "Some people see their main task as changing the ministers at the home office."
"I see my main task as changing the home office."
The dreadful headlines for Reid continued on Sunday with a
newspaper revealing that police had lost track of 322 registered
sex offenders.
On Monday it emerged that a dispute was brewing with prison
officers over the staffing of a new temporary jail due to open
this Spring in Merseyside to ease severe prisoner overcrowding.
Reid came under fire last week for writing to judges to tell
them the jails were full and encourage them to keep non-violent
offenders out of prison.
- Reuters
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