Home Secretary Jacqui Smith agreed with her Tory accusers that she had to pass two tests over the latest illegal migrants row.
She had to show she had dealt with the crisis as soon as she was aware of it and that she had been "open and honest" with MPs and the public about the situation.
She probably did better on the first than on the second.
Ms Smith told MPs of the measures she had taken to get to grips with the problem and speed up what she accepted were slow checking procedures as far back as last April.
She also confirmed one of the individuals involved had been working for the Metropolitan Police where he guarded government cars, including the prime minister's.
She did not specifically mention the prime minister's car in the Commons, but it was in copies of the statement handed to her opposite number David Davis.
She insisted the measures she had taken to launch a thorough review of all those immigrants in sensitive security posts had been robust in order to root out anyone working illegally.
Full analysis
She went so far as to say she had not told the prime minister of the issue because there had been no "fiasco or blunder", action had been taken and ministers did not go "running" to the PM on such occasions.
But she also confirmed she was not yet in possession of a full analysis of the size of the problem but would come back to the Commons next month to bring MPs up to date.
Illegal immigrants worked for the Met Police and at airports and portsNeedless to say, some were more convinced than others. Crucially for any minister under pressure, however, her own backbenchers appeared pretty convinced and there was no sense of a clamour for her head - not even the opposition has gone that far.
But where Ms Smith struggled most was over the question of why she had failed to make any of this public before today - and only then because of leaks to the media about the affair.
Her argument boiled down to a claim that she was not one of those politicians who went public on an issue before she had got all the facts.
She made no apology, she insisted, for being the sort of minister who was more concerned about what she should do about something than what she should say about something.
Cover up
And it is that bit that left many, particularly on the Tory benches, entirely unconvinced.
Shadow home secretary David Davis was having none of it, claiming the Home Office's reaction once the affair had emerged was one of "blunder, panic and cover up".
Was it really the case that, having known about the affair since April, this was the first opportunity she had had to tell MPs about it, he asked.
And it is this sense of cover-up and spin, of attempts to bury bad news, that risks attaching itself to the Gordon Brown government.
Mr Brown entered Downing Street heralding a different kind of politics which would be more frank, open and candid - as Mr Davis reminded her.
The Tories believe this affair is the clearest evidence yet that nothing has change and it is the same old game in government. And that is a charge Mr Brown will dearly want to see off.
She probably did better on the first than on the second.
Ms Smith told MPs of the measures she had taken to get to grips with the problem and speed up what she accepted were slow checking procedures as far back as last April.
She also confirmed one of the individuals involved had been working for the Metropolitan Police where he guarded government cars, including the prime minister's.
She did not specifically mention the prime minister's car in the Commons, but it was in copies of the statement handed to her opposite number David Davis.
She insisted the measures she had taken to launch a thorough review of all those immigrants in sensitive security posts had been robust in order to root out anyone working illegally.
Full analysis
She went so far as to say she had not told the prime minister of the issue because there had been no "fiasco or blunder", action had been taken and ministers did not go "running" to the PM on such occasions.
But she also confirmed she was not yet in possession of a full analysis of the size of the problem but would come back to the Commons next month to bring MPs up to date.
Illegal immigrants worked for the Met Police and at airports and portsNeedless to say, some were more convinced than others. Crucially for any minister under pressure, however, her own backbenchers appeared pretty convinced and there was no sense of a clamour for her head - not even the opposition has gone that far.
But where Ms Smith struggled most was over the question of why she had failed to make any of this public before today - and only then because of leaks to the media about the affair.
Her argument boiled down to a claim that she was not one of those politicians who went public on an issue before she had got all the facts.
She made no apology, she insisted, for being the sort of minister who was more concerned about what she should do about something than what she should say about something.
Cover up
And it is that bit that left many, particularly on the Tory benches, entirely unconvinced.
Shadow home secretary David Davis was having none of it, claiming the Home Office's reaction once the affair had emerged was one of "blunder, panic and cover up".
Was it really the case that, having known about the affair since April, this was the first opportunity she had had to tell MPs about it, he asked.
And it is this sense of cover-up and spin, of attempts to bury bad news, that risks attaching itself to the Gordon Brown government.
Mr Brown entered Downing Street heralding a different kind of politics which would be more frank, open and candid - as Mr Davis reminded her.
The Tories believe this affair is the clearest evidence yet that nothing has change and it is the same old game in government. And that is a charge Mr Brown will dearly want to see off.
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