Protecting Jack Straw

Yesterday afternoon the BBC were reporting that Jack Straw had taken "full responsibility" for failings by the Probation Service in the killings of Gabriel Ferez and Laurent Bonomo by Dano Sonnex and Nigel Farmer. "Full responsibility" I thought, if he's taking "full responsibility" then why is he not resigning? After all two people were brutally, sadistically murdered by men, one of whom was only at large because of failings of the probation and courts service that Jack Straw was taking "full responsibility" for.

This morning whilst The Times and others report Jack Straw's taking "full responsibility", the BBC have no mention of this phrase in their reporting. How odd...

This part of The Times report runs

"Mr Straw, who has met the families twice, said that Sonnex “could and should” have been in custody at the time of the killings. He said he took “full responsibility” for failings by the Probation Service but had never considered resigning and instead had set about putting things right. "

It's an odd sort of "full responsibility" that means you stay in position, drawing your huge salary, enjoying your large expenses and building a massive publicly funded final salary pension. It's an sort of state broadcaster that seems to expunge certain Minister's odd comments from its news coverage.