David Blunkett rides to the rescue
Thanks to Redpesto in the comments, we find no less a political titan than David Blunkett has waded into the Hazel Blears-George Monbiot face-off. In a letter to the Guardian this morning, Blunkett says…
There was a time when this newspaper stood out against the deeply personalised, offensive and ill-informed journalism which was ascribed to tabloid publications.
George Monbiot’s scurrilous, unjustified and pathetically spiteful diatribe against Hazel Blears is the kind of lowest form of journalism that is dragging this country into the gutter. What has happened to the standards of journalism, the informed and researched commentary, on which the Guardian once proudly built its name?
Where to start? Of course, Blunkett is the perfect candidate to make this defence because he has never made ‘deeply personalised, offensive and ill-informed’ comments himself, has he? What’s that? He has? Oh.
(And all this from a man who pandered to, courted, and fuelled the ‘ill-informed journalism’ of ‘tabloid publications’ while he was a cabinet minister. Who can forget Blunkett’s joy at the suicide of Harold Shipman. He’s now a paid columnist for a ‘tabloid publication‘, for crying out loud.)
Blunkett, only having had to resign from government twice, knows nothing of dragging this country into the gutter, does he? Ordering prisoners be machine-gunned is clearly high-politics at its finest. As is knocking up another man’s wife and having shady conflicts of interest. What do you think, has Blunkett helped or hindered Blears’ case here?
What has happened to the standards of politics, the informed and researched policies, on which the Labour Party once proudly built its name?
Posted on February 12th, 2009 at 11:23am under UK politics
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• 4 Comments |
If Blunkett was ever on my side, I’d panic and then switch sides.
I guess that they couldn’t find anyone except Blunkett to stand up for Blears.
Monbiot has hit the nail on the head: Blears has voted for some unusual things (locking people up without trial, breaking international law) but she is incapable of showing how these link to any political principles. Then Blunkett comes along and we see another shining example of the same problem.
I hadn’t actually read Blears’s original sneering until now. It’s breath taking! Monbiot gets my respect for his calm reply – I’d have written my response entirely in caps.
Blears’ case has been neither helped nor hindered. She hasn’t got a case; and, for as long as she and her political guts are sitting at the Cabinet table, she doesn’t need one.