Given that today is the local Election Day, i thought i'd give my political musings from the events of the last week (as of 4th May).

The Labour party has probably just had one of the worst weeks of the last 9 years its had in power. In Brief Charles Clarke the Home Secretary is responsible for the release of 1023 foreign criminals by mistake, 291 of these were asylum seekers. What has made this worse is that one of those released was responsible for the murder of WPC Sharon Beshenivsky; this has just made the whole fiasco a complete nightmare for Mr Clarke.

In the same week Patricia Hewitt, the Secretary of State for Health was heckled. This was because of the job cuts that under her approval have taken place. There have already been 7000 job cuts and bed closures all over the country. Patricia Hewitt could not have made the situation any worse when she started talking down to the nurses in a patronising fashion, the nurses were not happy to say the least! What Hewitt effectively did, was to attempt to fix the problems of the NHS from the past couple of decades all at once. Any sane person surely can realise that these things should be done over time and integrated slowly!

Finally to tip of what is already a mini disaster for the labour party, Deputy PM John Prescott was revealed to have been having an affair with his secretary, 43 year old Tracy Temple, that being 24 years his younger. What makes this worse it that Prescott was the chief attacker of the conservative party when it came to sleaze, and the whole time he was actually indulging in sleaze himself.

Now, Should they stay of should they go?
Charles Clarke says that he should retain his position in government as he should be allowed to fix the mistake that he made. Personally I cannot see how this can possibly stand up, if everyone was to plead that they should correct their mistakes, then we would never progress, e.g. Iain Duncan Smith would still be in charge of the Conservative Party, and thats certainly not what we want! Surely in this modern world, if somebody makes a serious mistake, they should be held accountable, Charles Clarke should do the decent thing and resign now, if he does not then Tony Blair should sack him immediately!

Given more thought, looking at john prescotts case, he should be given the choie, either resign or be sacked! In any other job that would be the choice he would face, had he been having an affair out of office time say at the pub on a sunday then fair enough he should not be sacked, but given the fact that it was happening in the office, he must be sacked. It is clearly a case of gross misconduct, Tony Blair knows that too and by not sacking him is showing a distinct lack of backbone! Look at the Football Assosiation with Mark Palios, when he had his affair with FA employee Faria Alam, he stood down and resigned. Prescott should follow suit!

Patricia Hewitt has not made one big mistake like the above two, but i feel that she should stand down, she has continued to make mistake after mistake, blunder after blunder and in my opinion clearly is not competent at doing her job, you may see this as harsh but she has just not performed to the standard that someone in her position should!

As the chinese proverb says, "a fish rocks from its head", heads must role for any progression to be made, we can only wait and see what Mr Blaor chooses to do!

Happy voting!