As it turns out, Clarke’s real adversary hasn’t been the tabloids but David Cameron. Having allowed Clarke to set out his reforms to the criminal justice system in last December’s green paper, optimistically titled Breaking the Cycle, he’s abandoned him at the last minute. This is becoming a habit of Cameron’s: he’s done it in quick succession to Caroline Spelman, Andrew Lansley and now his justice secretary. On each occasion the policy has passed through the cabinet, been given the apparent go ahead, and then the individual minister has been left to take either the entirety of the blame or almost all of it. On selling off the forests and reforming the NHS the “u-turns” have delivered slightly better, if still highly flawed policies; the exact opposite is the case this time round.