Blunkett
1. v. To have sexual intercourse. e.g. I gave the missus a right good blunketting last night
Etymology: earliest cited use ca. 2010 This ID card system is blunketted.
(The Sharpener’s Future Dictionary of Great Britain)

Aha. The Sunt have neglected to put online David Blunkett’s inaugaral column for them. You’ll have to buy the paper to appreciate the true poetic beauty of the piece.

Ostensibly, his main piece (followed by two shorts) is about the public (over)reaction to the death of George Best, the Diana effect of mass public grief and just why this is the case (”breakdown of family life… blah… loss of religious experience… community… blah… churches”). A fair enough subject to pick, if a little overdone.

He talks about the “beast” in Best and castigates the man at length for his drinking. Blunkett does, however, studiously avoid the darker side of Best’s character: his propensity for hitting women. As Gordon Burn put it in the Guardian:

Between the accounts of how she had been given black eyes and broken arms and had her hair hacked off in the night by her drunken husband, Alex Best’s book, Always Alex, is a litany of tabloid-funded trips to faraway places with George. A beating and a payday. Another love rat scandal, another BestEnders episode sold to the pops.

Blunkett on the other hand pulls, if you’ll forgive me, his punches on the subject of spousal abuse. Which, I imagine, is only understandable if your editor was recently arrested for doing something similar to her own partner.

Thinking about it, there are probably dozens of subjects Blunkett won’t be able to go near in future columns. Lies and deceit. Extra-marital affairs. Paying tax. The accountability of government ministers…

But it’s the mewling self pity that is most striking in the column…

But as I know to my cost, those who build up celebrities soon get bored with them - and are the first to knock them flying from their pedestals.

…and, invoking Sting…

I know from experience what it is like to have your life turned upside down as every move you make, every hand you shake, becomes potential danger.

In a short piece about Michael Howard:

As he prepares to leave the Tory leadership, I prepare to leave the home I’ve occupied for the last six years.

And on the pensions review: “I am still too close to make pronouncements…” Towards the end of his piece about Best he says:

The real heroes are those who fight back up from the bottom, who have the strength of character to rebuild their shattered lives.

I wonder who he’s talking about? And this is in Britain’s most popular newspaper. If he stood up and said this at a party you were at, you wouldn’t know where to look.

It makes you want to grab him by the lapels and shout, “You talk about mawkishness from the public? You are Britain’s most emotionally incontinent man and you are embarrassing everybody.” As if it wasn’t bad enough with his sentimental resignation interviews that made you suck your teeth and the moist laments about “that little lad”.

It has become become a national affliction to look for an outburst of joy, hate, fear… or grief

Physician, heal thyself.

UPDATE 4/12: Ha. It seems Nosemonkey in the comments was right:

The Independent - Blunkett: Oops, he did it again
David Blunkett has started his new job as a newspaper columnist without waiting for clearance from the anti-sleaze watchdog, the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments.

Posted on December 1st, 2005 at 9:40 am

See also • Christmas comes early • HMP Blunkett • David Davis: all kinds of everything		Permalink • Trackback • Subscribe By Email • Print This Post • • •
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