Asylum leak is pressing matter

What the department clearly does not have is a plumber. Otherwise, there would not be quite so many leaks.

The Home Office has always had a bad reputation on this front - with David Blunkett once famously highlighting the fact there was a policy he had NOT leaked in advance.

But its handling of the Throckmorton asylum accommodation centre announcement set a new benchmark for telling a couple of favoured hacks first, MPs a poor second and the public last of all.

Asylum Minister Lord Rooker, by all accounts a decent and straight talking man, had promised Peter Luff he would be the first to know if the RAF base had been chosen to house a massive asylum centre.

If it had, Peter would receive a mobile phone call in advance of any official statement - which would be made in theory to the House of Commons.

Peter did receive the call, but he was not the first to know. That honour went to a Sunday newspaper, closely followed by half the BBC.

Lord Rooker was furious, privately acknowledging his department was leaking like a sieve.

He also let his feelings show in public. Sitting reporters down to officially announce the news at a Westminster Press conference, he said:

"Right, I am here to tell you what you all already know."

Peter and Sir Michael Spicer were also livid. In a point of order in the Commons, Peter said MPs had suffered a "great discourtesy".

Calling for a leak inquiry, he added: "The matter is of huge importance to my constituents and to the asylum seekers who will be so inappropriately housed in accommodation centres. Should not the matter have been handled more appropriately?"

Speaker Michael Martin agreed entirely. He said Ministers were "as concerned" as Peter by the leak.

This is all very well, but will they do anything to stop it happening again with future announcements?

Indeed, with so many press officers at large are they even capable of doing so? Sadly, the answer is almost certainly "no".