Category: News and Views
Blunkett has gone, I repeat, Blunkett has gone! I always said he would, I always said he'd get his just deserts in the end after he wantonly voted to put tax on braille products in 1997 and to close special schools. he's a nutcase, described by Labour MP Bob Marshal-Andrews QC, as unbalanced, and it appears that he got him about right. Now, i'll post more later on, but who on earth is going to take his place? I can see no rising star amongst this hapless bunch of fools.
Greetings LawLord, You realize I trust that it is from America where I Post and if not for yourself as well as a few others we as Americans would not be informed at all to the happenings of England and surrounding area(s). Here in this Country, The USA, we hear next to nothing of the views shared. This is so very new to me, the information that you share. Please continue to share and allow for my listening ear as it were to listen in, eavesdrop if you, as valuable information is gained. Signed, CG
Well well, out with one fool and in with another even more inept idiot it seems. David Blunkett's replacement is charles Clarke, who up till now has been establishing a reputation for himself as someone who has a propensity to say the wrong thing at the wrong time and put his foot in it, and a man partial to booze and cigarettes, perhaps too much so in the case of booze. One thing I will agree with david Blunkett on is his assessment of charles Clarke who, says he, hasn't developed as we would have hoped. He's about right there! Charles Clarke's CV thus far is to preside over an education system that is now eighteenth in the world overall in basic skills, and way lower than that in maths specifically. He's presided over a one size fits all inclusionary approach, the disappearance of meritocracy in our education system, and a system where American professors of physics from Yale and Harvard have been told that they are insufficiently qualified to teach physics to fifteen-year-olds because they don't have a GCSE in maths. that's right, it's the same logic that would prevent Mozart from teaching music in an English state school. What an absolute joke! At least when Blunkett was education secretary before he became home secretary in 2001, he got a couple of things right including the introduction of the excellent literacy and numeracy hours. Mr Clarke, however, hasn't got anything going for him at all and in all senses is an absolute charlie! People of Britain, do you feel safe now? knowing that Charles is looking after our security?
A further update: I have now acquainted myself with the contents o the incriminating email. So far as material, it reads: No favours.....but slightly quicker. Now if that isn't damning evidence I don't know what is!
OMG Lawlord it must've been your letter that did it eh! Tipped him over the edge poor guy...Oh and do please refrain from referring to Tony's band of brothers (and sisters) as a 'hapless bunch of fools' or I will have to get very nasty about those damn Tories! Frey.
They're not all fools, if wh were to appoint Bob Marshal-Andrews QC to the cabinet all would be forgiven, at least up to a point. I'm afraid it looks like you're going to have no alternative but to have a go at the Tories again, however, as I stand by what I said. they're fools, and I have no patience with fools. We'll take the lot of 'em on and win! Mr Clarke is the best thing that could possibly happen for a future Conservative government in this country.
There will be no future Conservative government if I have my way LL! And this lady is not for turning....(ahhhh does that remind you of someone dear to your heart hmmmm?) Frey.
Good old Maggie Thatcher, and she was damn right, she wasn't for turning! Mind you, I'm as firm and fixed in my determination to support the Conservative party as you are to prop up the Blairite regime. At least we can say that Charles Clarke has a fairly easy brief as home secretary though: all he needs to do is be better than david Blunkett. NNow that shouldn't be too hard, should it? Then again, we are talking about Charles Clarke here, who's probably hung-over as I write.
it seems to me lawlord has done his research into this matter, wheras fraya or howerver you spell it has not. frya just bangs on about the tory's, and in all fairness, the torys are not the subject under discussion here, as the subject is that of david blunket's record and his resignation, from, yes, a labour government. I don't profess to know much about charles clarke, so I won't go there. As for david blunket, I got a sense of his supposed feelings that he was untouchable by the way he spouted off in public re his thoughts on his cabinate colegues. you might express those views privately, but never in public arenas when you are in public office. refering to another topic posed by lawlord re blunket's atitude, I agree that he maybe did think he was untouchable by vertue, if you can call it that, of being the first blind cabinate minister. a kind of, "I'm here, I'm blind, so noone will touch me.
Yes Dobin I think that is a fair comment. All right, to give Blunkett a bit of credit, I don't think he would have started out thinking like that, but I think that sort of complacency would have crept in eventually. The fundamental thing about a home secretary, though, is he must have an understanding of criminal justice and the agents who work within the system including lawyers, courts, police, victims and offenders. David Blunkett's ever-present fault was that he failed to see that he too is bound by the rule of law as home secretary. he failed also to remember that there are certain inalienable guarantees in favour of the citizen and any person in this country. right to trial by jury is one, the right against self-incrimination another, and the idea that it is the prosecution who must prove the defendant's guilt rather than the defendant prove his innocence a third. David Blunkett, I regret to say, jumped on the bandwagon of terrorism and used it to mess around with these rights. it's no wonder that the law lords found, yet again, that he was in violation of the law by locking up terrorist suspects without a trial today.
i don't know if you'd agree, but hasn't david blunket got more judgments of unlawful actions against him than any other home secretary in recent times? I know the torys had a few, but hasn't blunket even surpassed their tally?
Cheers so much for your kind words Dubbin or whoeverthehell you spell it...I actually feel quite sorry for David Blunkett, but obviously I'm not allowed to say that am I? Frey.
whether you feel sorry for david blunket is not under discussion here, what is is his resignation, and that has nothing what so ever to do with the record of a tory government who've been out of office for seven years prior to david blunket's misdeeds. I don't feel sorry for the man at all. I feel that if he is the clever man everyone says he is, he should realise he must be dam careful what he says and does. he's failed to be careful in this instance, and has paid the rightful price for his actions. the man Being blind is no reason to feel sorry for him if he's performed actions and made comments that have landed him in an untennable situation as far as his job goes. Politicians know the codes of conduct, they know what they can and can't do, and blunket ignored this. He paid the price for it in my view. His atitude might have led him to think he was untouchable, well, he ain't, bye bye mister.
First of all, Dobin you are right that the courts have ruled against david Blunkett as home secretary quite a few times, but that's nothing unusual to be honest and in fact it's heartening. With no parliamentary accountability to speak of it's goo dto know that the government is held to account through judicial review, and for the record I think the ruling of the House of Lords was absolutely right. Lord Hoffmann in particular was right on the button in his judgment. I have to be somewhat more sympathetic to Freya though old lad: I don't feel sorry for Blunkett myself, purely because I believe that he isn't resigning for the sake of 'That little lad' as he claims to be. He wants to come back into the cabinet next year, and I've no doubt that he will do. so it will be just like Alun Milburn saying last year that he wanted to spend more time with his family so he was giving up, only to return to the fold this year. Blunkett has resigned, i think, because he got caught out and although he went before he was pushed as it were, I'm afraid I'm rather cynical about that. As for the high court battle over the little lad, Blunkett should think very very carefully before pressing for residency and custody of the child. If you want my inexperienced opinion, I doubt he would win on either count.
I wonder how Charlie clarke is going to cope with the lawlords saying his predecessor was a charlie! Oh dear, very poor I know, worthy of Richard Whitely one might say, but I couldn't resist!
c'mon LL you can do better than that....are you a fan of Richard's btw? Frey.
I've often thought that I'd like to apply for countdown, to take Richard on at puns. Only problem is that whilst I'd be okay with the words and numbers, I'd be rubbish at the conundrum as I don't get enough practice att that particular game. By the way, look out for Lord walker of Gestingthorpe, who has done his prospects for promotion to Lord Chancellor or Master of the Rolls no harm at all, being the only lord of appeal out of nine to rule in favour of the government! Sad really, isn't it? Still, if you're going to have a Blunkett restriction of the foreign suspect's rights, perhaps it should apply to british suspects as well. did I say Blunkett restriction? I meant blanket restriction of course.
But I'm afraid this is far from the last we have heard of the Blunkett affair. can you believe this? The west end, apparently, is now getting geared up for - wait for it - Blunkett the musical! The new show is apparently set to hit the stage as early as March next year! This bloody country! It's ridiculous! Or is it? I mean, maybe blunkett is more like the phantom of the opera than we first thought: a man some describe as unbalanced obsessed about a certain female? Well that's what Phantom's about and yet it seems to fit our david quite well too! I'm not aware that kimberley Quinn has any credentials as a soprano though. I wonder what lyrics they're going to come up with? Perhaps because the show has to be rushed into production they'll have to borrow from others, so how about to get the ball rolling as it were: 'My power over you grows stronger yet' from Phantom of the Opera, 'Only you have the power to move me' from starlight express only this tiem sung by whoever is playing Kimberley's nanny, or of course 'on my own' from les miserables! any other ideas? and what do we think in general of blunkett, the musical?
And of course, although of course not from a musical, the words of alanas Morissette would be highly appropriate to sum up his time concerning imigration and crime control at the home office: 'Thank you indians, thank you terrorists, thank you disallusionment'!
I think it is a brilliant idea and I would very much like a leading role, if you can swing it for me LL...Frey.
Sure I am sure we can find a leading role for you Freya, how would you like to be Mrs Quinn, the star of the show? Or I suppose you could be one of Blunkett's cabinet colleagues, Clair Short perhaps? I'm not sure what other women have figured in Mr Blunkett's life.
Well, I think a highly appropriate contribution would be to have a song from another blind artist featured in the show .. Part Time Lover by Steevie Wonder undiniable springs to mind as a prime example.
excellent idea Wildebrew, excellent. Now I think we could really run with this one, so maybe a new topic solely dedicated to Blunkett, the true story, should be started. Who knows, it could be our ticket to fame and fortune?