The outcry against David Blunkett fomented by his ex-lover Kimberly Quinn, publisher of the right wing weekly the Spectator? It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy!
Blunkett is the most odious and unprincipled of the one-time leftists who adopted the outlook and attitudes of the Thatcher Tories in order to win office and who in government continue Thatcherite policies.
As Home Secretary Blunkett has used the traditional language of the far right in making wild demagogic denunciations of immigrants which chime in with the outright racism of the Sun
This moral idiot has worked to politically disarm the Tory right and the hidebound racists and chauvinists by speaking their language and adopting their policies to make himself the champion of their causes and concerns.
Home Secretary Blunkett stands in the tradition of bone-hearted Tories such as the present Tory leader, Michael Howard.
In party terms the Tories don’t like Blunkett, because he shamelessly stole their political clothes and makes them seem irrelevant.
But they like him well enough to be one of their own.
Friendly Tory concern for Blunkett in the House of Commons, and the comparative restraint of the editorial voices in the Tory press, will surprise only those who think the habitually rude dog-kennel noise of Tory MPs in the Commons is for real.
The policies which Blunkett pursues as Home Secretary are for real, not the ritual opposition noises of those whose political clothes he has stolen and whose political work he does so shamelessly.
Political life would be better if this shameless creature were no longer part of it. Blunkett should resign — not for the charges made against him by Kimberly Quinn, but because as Home Secretary he outrages every decent instinct which the labour movement embodies.
By Annie O’Keefe
