The Blunkett Zone

Stephen Pollard is writing David Blunkett’s biography and it seems to me that he’s a bit of a fan:

Take Mr Blunkett. The caricature view is that he’s the most ‘right wing’ Home Secretary since…well, since whom? Jack Straw? Or Michael Howard? The facts say something rather different. Rather than the ‘lock ’em up and throw away the key’ caricature, Mr Blunkett is engaged in a fascinating experiment to see whether it is indeed possible to be both tough and tender, and to be severe where necessary and lenient where permissible.

Unfortunately it seems that the fascinating experiment that Blunkett is engaging in has been leaking fumes which, by this account, has severely affected Mr. Blunkett’s judgement.

WHAT do you give someone who’s been proved innocent after spending the best part of their life behind bars, wrongfully convicted of a crime they didn’t commit?

An apology, maybe? Counselling? Champagne? Compensation? Well, if you’re David Blunkett, the Labour Home Secretary, the choice is simple: you give them a big, fat bill for the cost of board and lodgings for the time they spent freeloading at Her Majesty's Pleasure in British prisons.

Did I say it affected his judgement? Obviously I meant his sanity.

I have a great respect for most of Stephen’s writing and am an avid fan of his blog but I think that Blunkett has managed to cast a spell on him. This would be in keeping with the rising opinion that Blunkett is indeed evil. Not so much as having something of the night about him but rather more like being the Prince of Darkness himself, manifest in almost human form.

Now being a blogger, and therefore entrenched as a member of the chattering class I was surprised to read Stephen’s opinion of us:

The typical chattering class response when I tell people that I am writing Mr Blunkett’s biography is an asinine variation on that ‘right wing’ theme, followed by self-congratulatory guffaw at their having had so astonishingly original a thought. That there might be more to the policies emerging from the Home Office – that it might be possible to want retribution and rehabilitation, for example – doesn’t cross their mind. In part, that’s because of the Home Secretary’s remarkable ability to say what people outside Islington think.

Indeed, and people outside of planet Earth.

I wonder what this biography will be called? Here are some ideas.

1. The Evil Deed
2. The Sceptical Human
3. I’m an Idiot and so is my Boss
4. When Experiments go Wrong
5. Franken-Blunkett

Why not have a go yourself? And remember, try not to indulge in any self-congratulatory guffawing.

Barking?

Posted by John at March 16, 2004 08:36 AM | TrackBack