1) Find out problem via leak to national newspaper
2) Issue denial
3) Have former Home Secretary who everyone hates slag the decision off
4) Face media storm
5) Wait a few months, then capitualte once everyone’s started looking the other way.

(Cf. tuition fees, top-up fees, on the spot fines, prison overcrowding, Blunkett leaving office, Clarke leaving office, ID cards, police force mergers, etc. etc. etc.)

Today’s colour-coded “Labour idiocy threat level” stands at Puce (middling to high idiocy), a slight decline from last week’s Prescott-inspired Vermillion and the weekend’s ID-card and Super Happy Fun Public Terror Threat Indicator prompted Burundy alerts.