My fantasy Cabinet would be a ministry of all the failures

Most of us know what it is to finish a task undertaken for the first time, having made every mistake in the book, and regret we are unlikely ever to have to do this job again. We would know the ropes next time: the pitfalls, the useful little short-cuts. The job would be a doddle second time round.

Were I ever again to need to cut three round holes in a wooden faceplate, to offer nesting access to small birds while excluding jackdaws, I would know that a determined jackdaw can slip through a tiny hole: much smaller than you would guess by looking at the jackdaw. But I have finished the job now and will never have to do it again — more’s the pity. The hash I made of it the first time would make it easy and fun, the second. I’d be really good at it.

Were Charles Clarke ever to be Home Secretary again (one assumes he won’t be for much longer), he would be supersensitive to the public and media horror of released prisoners slipping unvetted into the crowd.