More than 900 of these people are still unaccounted for and Clarke said the whereabouts of most were unknown.

Three murderers, nine rapists, five child molesters and 20 drug smugglers are among the freed prisoners.

"I think it was a shocking failure by the Home Office and by everybody involved including me," Clarke told the BBC late Tuesday, reiterating an earlier apology for the mess.

The minister has so far shrugged off any suggestion of resignation, however, saying he will only go if he fails to rectify things.

"I have considered the question of resignation, I can assure you, and the consideration I have made is that it is my duty and certainly my responsibility to put these matters straight and that is what I intend to do," Clarke said.

But Wednesday's British press turned up the heat with a barrage of screaming headlines, critical editorials and subtle political cartoons depicting the minister.

"What criminal incompetence," the right-wing Daily Mail splashed across its front page, while the Daily Mirror tabloid went with: "Criminal blunder".

The Sun, Britain's best-selling newspaper, took the strongest line against the home secretary, demanding his resignation in an editorial entitled: "Clarke must go".

It dismissed as insufficient an admission by the minister that the public was entitled to be concerned about the blunder, adding: "People are entitled to the home secretary's resignation -- or instant dismissal for rank negligence."

The Daily Mirror, for its part, highlighted the dangers of known murderers and paedophiles roaming unchecked about the streets of Britain.

"Mistakes happen in all governments, but this ranks among the most serious and was entirely avoidable," it said."

The Times newspaper said the Home Office, once referred to as the "dustbin" of ministries because of the enormous range of responsibilities it used to shoulder, should now be known as the "sieve", alluding to its many holes.

The daily warned: "If the 'sieve' that the home office has been does not become more secure, and the offenders are not identified and located, there is every reason for Mr Clarke to fear for his job security."

Opposition parties seized the moment to attack the government ahead of local elections in England next week.

David Davis, home affairs spokesman for the main opposition Conservatives, said it was the latest in a long line of failures to threaten public safety.

"This serial incompetence beggars belief," he said.

In a statement released Tuesday, Clarke said the error was made because the Prison Service was not focused on the nationality of its prisoners while the immigration authorities were concerned with other matters.

He also highlighted a jump in the number of foreign prisoners in England and Wales from 4,300 in 1996 to more than 10,000 at the end of February.

The Immigration and Nationality Directorate has so far tracked down 107 of the former convicts, leading to 20 deportations, Clarke added.

The mistake came to light after a House of Commons committee asked questions about released foreign prisoners at a hearing last October.

A raft of problems -- such as a furore over election campaign financing and a legal row embroiling the estranged husband of Culture and Sports Minister Tessa Jowell -- have helped send support for Blair's Labour Party to a near 20-year low, a poll revealed on Tuesday.

Presented by the government as a simple measure for streamlining de-regulation, or "getting rid of red tape", the only red tape it will actually remove is that of parliamentary scrutiny of government legislation, including this remarkable bill. It will mean that the government can secretly change the Parliament Act and the constitution and laws can be struck down by decree from Downing Street. Blair has demonstrated his taste for absolute power in his abuse of the royal prerogative, which he has used to bypass parliament in going to war and in dismissing landmark High Court judgements, such as that which declared illegal the expulsion of the entire population of the Chagos islands, now the site of an American military base. The new bill marks the end of true parliamentary democracy; in its effect, it is as significant as the US Congress last year abandoning the bill of rights.

Those who fail to hear these steps on the road to dictatorship should look at the government's plans for ID cards, described in its manifesto as "voluntary". They will be compulsory and worse. An ID card will be different from a driving licence or passport. It will be connected to a database called the NIR (National Identity Register), where your personal details will be stored. These will include your fingerprints, a scan of your iris, your residence status and unlimited other details about your life. If you fail to keep an appointment to be photographed and fingerprinted, you can be fined up to 2,500 pounds.

Every place that sells alcohol or cigarettes, every post office, every pharmacy and every bank will have an NIR terminal where you can be asked to "prove who you are". Each time you swipe it, a record is made at the NIR. This means that the government will know every time you withdraw more than 99 pounds from your bank account. Restaurants and off-licences (liquor stores) will demand that the card is swiped so that they are indemnified from prosecution. Private business will have full access to the NIR. If you apply for a job, your card will have to be swiped. If you want a London Undergound Oyster card, or a supermarket loyalty card, or a telephone line or a mobile phone or an internet account, your card will have to be swiped.

In other words, there will be a record of your movements, your phone records and shopping habits, even the kind of medication you take.

These databases, which can be stored in a device the size of a hand, will be sold to third parties without you knowing. The ID card will not be your property and the Home Secretary will have the right to revoke or suspend it at any time without explanation. This would prevent you drawing money from a bank. ID cards will not stop or deter terrorists, as Home Secretary Charles Clarke has now admitted; the Madrid bombers all carried ID. On 26 March, the government silenced the last parliamentary opposition to the cards when it ruled that the House of Lords could no longer block legislation contained in a party's manifesto. The Blair clique does not debate. Like the zealot in Downing Street, its "sincere belief" in its own veracity is quite enough. When the London School of Economics published a long study that effectively demolished the government's case for the cards. Charles Clarke abused it for feeding a "media scare campaign". This is the same minister who attended every cabinet meeting at which Blair's lies over his decision to invade Iraq were clear.

This government was re-elected with the support of barely a fifth of those eligible to vote: the second lowest since the franchise. Whatever respectability the famous suits in television studios try to give him, Blair is demonstrably discredited as a liar and war criminal. Like the constitution-hijacking bill now reaching its final stages, and the criminalising of peaceful protest, ID cards are designed to control the lives of ordinary citizens (as well as enrich the new Labour-favoured companies that will build the computer systems). A small, determined, and profoundly undemocratic group is killing freedom in Britain, just as it has killed literally in Iraq. That is the news. "The kaleidoscope has been shaken," said Blair at the 2001 Labour Party conference. "The pieces are in flux. Soon they will settle again. Before they do, let us re-order this world around us."