Seems to me ministers can't be held very strictly to account. The job of governing is complicated - very - and constantly shifting about, so inevitably it is done in a rough, piecemeal, approximate fashion that can't be examined too closely by us punters.
It would be quite inconvenient if ministers were always being shot down in flames for ordinary trivial peculation and 'approximate' decisions. It would damage continuity, so-called, which means in effect ministers having some sort of idea of what they are supposed to be doing. Any minister who is especially venal and corrupt, or widely despised by colleagues, won't have a long career in government.
Of course mistakes (e.g. Iraq) and bad actions by governments are not unusual. Sometimes they're even 'necessary': Mrs Thatcher was helped a bit during the Falklands war by the hideous Chilean murderer Pinochet, whom she treated thereafter as a friend. She didn't give a damn what happened to foreigners, basically.
|
Commons programme 
Commons programme 