Is it all over for Calamity Lammy?

Letting prisoners out by mistake is one of the surest ways to tank a reputation, and if Labour cannot do better than the Tories on such a basic issue, they are utterly clueless, says John Rentoul

Nowadays people do not seem to break out of prison, they seem to be let out by mistake. Indeed, the job of justice secretary today seems to chiefly involve presiding over the farce of prisoners not only released when they weren’t meant to be, but also pleading to be rearrested.

Such mistakes are inevitable. The test of the justice secretary is whether he can get the numbers down to the absolute minimum and look as if he is in control of the system. It is a test that David Lammy is failing.

As he stood in for Keir Starmer at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, Lammy failed to answer questions about the release by mistake of a visa over-stayer awaiting deportation. It was said on his behalf later that he didn’t want to comment on a case when all the facts were not known, but apparently he had a statement prepared and didn’t use it.

As a result, he made himself look silly, as he ranted about the terrible state in which the Conservatives had left the prison system. And he handed a parliamentary victory to the opposition as James Cartlidge, the shadow cabinet minister chosen by Kemi Badenoch as her substitute for PMQs.

The accident-prone deputy prime minister managed to make things even worse by forgetting to wear a poppy, despite pausing at the start of PMQs to say “we will never forget” the sacrifice of our armed forces in the week before Remembrance Sunday.

David Lammy stood in for Keir Starmer at PMQs on Wednesday (PA)

This led to today’s comic subplot as journalists sought clarification of Lammy’s excuse that he had bought a new suit “this morning” because his godmother said that she would be watching his first PMQs. It turned out that he had bought it on Monday, not that it explained why he wasn’t wearing a poppy anyway. In any case, you have to feel for his godmother, if she was indeed watching. As first PMQs as deputy prime minister go, this was nothing short of disastrous.

The poppy-less suit hardly matters. It could be classified as accidental entertainment, along with the priceless video of Lammy in Hackney in 2018, in which he said, “It feels like neighbourhood policing has vanished. It’s not around you” ... with a police officer in the shot, right behind him.

More serious errors of judgement included nominating Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader and opposing the Trident nuclear deterrent – ostensibly on grounds of Christian principle – because he wanted to be Labour’s candidate for mayor of London in 2016. Both required recantation later.

But now he has a serious political problem to deal with – and he is doing it badly. The number of prisoners released in error doubled in the 12 months to March this year, a period that covers the first nine months of the Labour government. The Ministry of Justice says that part of this was caused by an error in the law implementing the early release scheme to ease the pressure on overcrowded prisons. The error was “swiftly identified and corrected”, the ministry says, and the offenders concerned were “all rearrested and returned to custody”.

But there are other failings, which Lammy seemed to deny on Wednesday, saying he had “put in place the toughest checks we have ever had in the prison system” after last month’s first accidental release. Still missing is another prisoner, apparently given a six-day headstart on the police before anyone raised the alarm. Alex Davies-Jones, the junior minister sent out on Thursday morning to try to clear up after her boss, seemed to take a more realistic view when she blamed the paper-based system requiring reams and reams of documents – although that was the same system under the Tories.

Of course, Lammy cannot be sacked, because that would make it look as if the government were falling apart – and Starmer would have to answer questions about why Lucy Powell, the new deputy leader of the Labour Party, couldn’t be deputy prime minister.

But his haplessness is deeply damaging to the government. Labour’s main credible pitch for office was that it would be more competent than the Conservatives. If it cannot offer even a small improvement in competence on such a basic issue as the management of offenders and deportees, what is the point of it?