"Smith regrets lack of training "

Apparently

"Jacqui Smith feared she was not up to being home secretary and wished she had been better trained for the role, she reveals in a magazine interview.

She told Total Politics magazine she had "never run a major organisation" before accepting the job in 2007.

"I hope I did a good job but if I did it was more by luck than by any kind of development of those skills," she adds.

...

She also speaks of her first weekend as home secretary, in July 2007, when she had to respond to the abortive terror attacks in central London and Glasgow airport.

"I'm not sure I understood, I'm ashamed to say, when I first heard it, quite how serious it was.

"When somebody rings you up and they say 'a car has been found in Haymarket and it seems like it might have been set up to explode', your first reaction is 'oh, that's interesting'. You then think 'well, now I'm home secretary, so I have responsibility for that'."

"Smith regrets lack of training " - not as much as the UK population does. Now how much training as an economist did Gordon Brown have before becoming Chancellor of the Exchequer, from the look of it not much? Has David Miliband any training in diplomacy? Obviously Peter Mandelson has wide experience of the mortgage market which must help in his expanded departmental roles, although I am not sure how many other people will be able to avail themselves of the sort of deal he arranged with Geoffrey Robinson.