52% intelligent. 9% modest. More monkey than bear.

Monday, November 29, 2004

Do you think you could raise enough to save your skin?


[cartoon blatantly stolen from Martin Rowson at the Guardian. Credit where credit's due etc. Click to enlarge]

David Blunkett is many things. He is the British Home Secretary. He is from Sheffield. He is blind. Indeed, he is the first blind man ever to reach the Front Bench of the Government. He a has a lovely guide dog called Sadie, who replaced a lovely dog called Lucy. He is a prime mover in the proposed reclassification of Cannabis from a Class 'B' drug to a Class 'C' drug. He is the scourge of asylum seekers to the UK. He is determined to bring identity cards into the UK. Most recently he has announced proposals for new anti-terror laws including the proposal to remove the right to trial by jury in some cases (as discussed on this blog).

Odd mix of policies for a labour MP, wouldn't you say? Cannabis reform: good. Erosion of my civil liberties: very bad.

I've said it before, but I have a deep-seated unease about these laws. Plenty of people don't think that carrying an ID card is such a big deal, but I'm afraid I do. It is my right to walk around in this country without needing to be able to prove who I am. Do we need to give the police the justification to stop anyone they want at any time? Besides, how does it help to stamp out the terror threat exactly?

Recently we found out that David Blunkett had been having an affair. He's not married himself, but, his girlfriend is. Anyway, so far so boring - and pretty unlikely to damage his career. Some new allegations have emerged that could possibly put his job on the line. Apparently he intervened in a visa application for the nanny of his ex-lover. As the minister with the overall responsibility for immigration, this is potentially a big deal.

I was delighted. What's the word? Shadenfraude.

Blunkett has set up an immediate enquiry into the matter, but frankly, why do we need to examine the facts of the case? Why do we need a group of impartial witnesses to go through the evidence? Why can't we just act and throw the man out of his job and into some kind of internment? That would teach him. Wouldn't it?

The press are getting predictably excited about this, but from what I can see, sadly he is probably guilty of nothing more than stupidity. In a world where we have been taken into an unpopular and unjustified war, I just can't get excited about this (or the fact that Stephen Pound apparently spends over £100,000 on travel expenses despite being an MP in Ealing travelling to a Westminster parliament)

Curses.

The worm is turning on this government. The signs are there that the gloss from 1997 has almost entirely disappeared now. Blair is pretty embattled on all front.

Sadly I still feel like I don't really have an alternative. Michael Howard? Do me a favour.

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Meanwhile, in America, I found this (through this).

Yes. I know. Say no more.

Sooooooo depressing.

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On a more positive note for US/UK relations - a big hello to Jenni. She's contributed to the creation of this post, and I thank her for her assistance, and acknowledge her creative input....

Posted by Hello

8 Comments:

  • At 12:39 am, Blogger OLS said…

    Oh bloody hell! *mutter, mutter, mutter*

    Why is it that so many right-wing Americans insist on telling UK/Australian people that you'd be speaking either German or Russian without our help in the 1940s.

    Have they actually done history? For starters, the Russians were in fact a bigger influence on the war in Europe than the Americans. The American army were mostly involved in fighting the Japanese and had a small (in comparison with other countries) contingent in Europe and even in Africa/the Middle East.

    And the Russians never tried to conquor Europe in the 1940s. Sure they sought a bigger chunk of the countries that had been occupied by Germany than the rest of the Allies were happy with, but they certainly didn't make any attempt to take over the UK.

    Plus, you can hardly say that the US jumped into the war to help Europe. They joined the Allies because the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour. They were as neutral as Switzerland up until that point (which wasn't really all that neutral, but pretended to be).

    *rolls eyes* Honestly! It just drives me nuts!

    /rant

    - OLS

     
  • At 3:08 am, Blogger OLS said…

    Urban Fox - will it make you feel better or worse to know that I already read your blog regularly, but just haven't commented? ;o)

    Don't feel bad. I probably will comment one day, but for the time being, anything I've thought of saying, either you or one of your commenters had already said.

    I thought of posting my comment onto Major Dad's blog rather than here, but I'm not likely to go back there again to see the reaction, which kind of defeats the purpose.

    So yeah, I just hijaked SwissToni's blog to rant instead... ;o)

    - OLS

     
  • At 10:40 am, Blogger John McClure said…

    I was sitting reading your blog last night when the man Parish popped round for a haircut. He stuck his head round the door and asked what I was looking at.

    Parish: "That's some top music reviewing."
    Me: "I know... but I'm surprised Blunkett's not even getting a mention."

    Then you dropped in a little sentence at the bottom of the previous post to reassure me that this one was on its way.

    For my money, Blunkett can just about bugger off. They all can. They're all a shower to tossers. Apart from Gordon Brown, who is the step-brother-in-law of my wife's sister's new boyfriend... if you can follow that.

     
  • At 10:44 am, Blogger Teresa Bowman said…

    Funnily enough, MajorDad looks (in the photo on his blog) EXACTLY how I thought he would look, from reading his comments on Urban Fox's posts.

    And, yeah, right, the only reason America "stepped in" to WW2 was out of the goodness of their hearts to prevent us poor pathetic British runts from being forced to "speak German or Russian" (huh?). Nothing to do with Pearl Harbor at all, no, no way.

    That's America's role in world affairs, isn't it? The big kid who steps in when a slightly less big kid is bullying a little kid in the playground, knocks him out with one almighty punch and then walks off dusting his hands saying, "Right, you owe me now." Yeah.

    It's spelled Schadenfreude, by the way. But yes, I feel that way about Blunkett too.

     
  • At 11:17 am, Blogger swisslet said…

    Thanks - I knew I had that spelt wrong, but couldn't for the life of my find the correct spelling!

    And as for majordad - it's the shirt and shades, isn't it?

     
  • At 11:20 am, Blogger swisslet said…

    .... curse those yanks.

    I'd have spelt that correctly if it wasn't for them!

     
  • At 12:39 pm, Blogger John McClure said…

    America is that big kid in the playground, but, as Bill Bailey said when I saw him recently (I bought a ticket - he didn't just drop in for a cup of tea and a bit of a sit down), if that's America, what does that make us? That makes us the annoying little, weedy, mouthy kid hiding behind the biggest kid in the playground shaking our fist and saying "yeaahhhh, take that!" before ducking back behind the fat kid again. As big Alec once said "Who's the more foolish? The fool, or the fool who follows him?"

    (I am in no way trying to infer that Blunkett's dog is a fool)

     
  • At 1:00 am, Blogger Jenni said…

    I would just like to add on to what OLS has said about Americans and their role in WWII. If it weren't for immigrants from Germany and the UK, Poland, Denmark, Italy, and just about any other European nation you can name, the United States would not have even been in a position to come to the aid of Europe in WWII. We all have our histories, and they inevitably intertwine and show us that we are interdependent, whether we want to own up to it or not.

    As for David Blunkett, I think he should be rung up for the security measures more than securing a visa for a nanny, but that's just my American opinion speaking. Maybe use him as a test case for the new security measures, and see if he is still a fan. After all, interfering with the visa process cannot be good for security. They keep telling us here in the US that immigration and visa issues are key in defeating the war on terror ;)

     

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