Deport Jacqui Smith!

"Illegal immigrant at Home Office", was a headline on the 'politics' section of the BBC News website this evening, and for one ghastly moment I thought that Peter Hain had been made Home Secretary. But then I remembered: Hain may be an undesirable immigrant, but, sadly, he's not an illegal.

No, the headline just referred to the latest embarrassing revelation in the story of the government's ongoing cock-up over illegal immigration. Sorry, I should have been more explicit: as the post immediately prior to this one shows, the government likes to have several cock-ups over illegal immigration on the go at any one time - the one I refer to in this instance, however, is the one involving illegal immigrants (approximately 11,000 of them, according to the latest estimate) being cleared to work in the security sector . Now, I see that among those organisations finding themselves being guarded by an illegal immigrant, was the Home Office itself:

An illegal immigrant was employed as a security guard at the Home Office, the government has admitted.

The man worked at the front desk of the department's headquarters in Westminster checking people's passes.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said problems were identified with one of the sub-contractors providing services to the Home Office.

His job would have involved checking the passes of people visiting Ms Smith, ministers and senior civil servants.

Deportation proceedings have now begun against the guard.

Maybe they should make him Home Secretary. He couldn't possibly be more useless than the current one, or any of her recent predecessors, or likely successors. Yes, make him Home Secretary, and deport Jacqui Smith (and Liam Byrne, for good measure).