John Reid's Fitness for Purpose 5 May 2006 – 15 January 2007

John Reid’s Fitness for Purpose was found dead this weekend shortly before John Reid himself was due to be questioned by MPs about his department's failure to pass on details of thousands of criminals convicted abroad to the police, and about his penchant for the music of Wagner.

John Reid's Fitness for Purpose was born a brash, and noisy child – the offspring of Tony Blair’s Desire to Look Tough on Crime and The Craven Wish to Pander to a Tabloid Morality. Within seconds of its birth it had accused the midwife of not being fit for purpose, slapped her and made her cry – and then had her deported.

Minutes later the Fitness for Purpose was appointed Home Secretary, replacing Charles Clarke following a scandal involving the release of foreign national prisoners. It immediately criticised the Home Office for not being “fit for purpose” and vowed to make the public feel secure, by locking up as many of them as possible, for as long as possible without trial, and then have them deported, if at all possible.

But after six months of tough-talking and shooting from the hip (the right one), John Reid's Fitness for Purpose was called into question last week by the news that it had “mislaid” the details of thousands of criminals convicted abroad. It admitted that the matter was “a very serious problem” – but not quite as serious a problem as having John Reid as Home Secretary.

It was the suspension of a senior Home Office civil servant, known only as a Mr F. Allguy, who had volunteered information on the scandal that led ultimately to John Reid's Fitness for Purpose to take its own life rather than face a room of nasty, shouty men who might say something hurtful.

The body of John Reid’s Fitness for Purpose will be held for 90 days in solitary before being deported to Scotland. It is predeceased by John Reid’s Sense of Shame and survived by John Reid’s swivel-eyed Lurch to the Right.