'Not fit for purpose' - the secret history of a deadly phrase

'Not fit for purpose' - the secret history of a deadly phraseJust nowShareSaveAdd as preferred on GoogleAdam Fleming,NewscastandChris Mason,Political editorAFP via Getty Images"Our system is not fit for purpose."And with this description of parts of the Home Office in 2006, the then-Home Secretary John Reid minted a phrase that has lodged in the lexicon of British politics.He was speaking a few months after thousands of foreign-born prisoners had been released from British jails without first being considered for deportation.Lord Reid has previously attributed the four-word phrase to an unnamed senior civil servant. Now in a three-part series about the Home Office, the Newscast podcast can reveal the identity of its author.It was the permanent secretary in the department at the time, Sir David Normington."It is my phrase, but it was written in a private memo to the Home Secretary, John Reid, just after he had arrived. [It was] me saying, 'This is what the Home Office is like,'" he told us.Sir David accompanied Lord Reid as he uttered the now infamous form of words to a House of Commons committee two decades ago."With me sat beside him, [I tried] to rearrange my face as he described all 70,000 civil servants in the Home Office as not fit for purpose," he recalled."That was a difficult moment and the civil service said to me: 'Well, why don't you stand up and tell him it's not true?'"The trouble was… it was my phrase."House of CommonsSir David Normington and John Reid on the day the phrase was bornIn the 20 years since it was popularised, "not fit for purpose" has become an a universal by-word for state incompetence, something bureaucrats and their ministerial bosses reach for when they are trying to strike a tough, no-nonsense tone. The Hansard record of parliamentary proceedings suggests it has been used nearly 3,000 times in the Commons and Lords since 2006. In the 20 yea...