Sir Keir Starmer says he is “angry and frustrated” over mistaken release from prison of crooks such as sex offenders and fraudsters. His deputy, Justice Secretary David Lammy , has been humiliated. Opposition parties are on the warpath, lashing out at ministerial failures. And a despairing public looks on aghast at the latest sign of breathtaking incompetence on the eve of a Budget in which citizens will be squeezed for even more cash to fund a decaying state that seems unable to deliver even its most basic functions.

This crisis could hardly be any worse for a cash-strapped Government that looks engulfed in a permanent state of crisis. First came accidental release of Hadush Kebatu – the Ethiopian asylum seeker who arrived on a small boat and whose assault on a teenage girl in Esse

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