Moment of the night?

[Rachael]

Originally Posted by Andy Mellon

god help us if its Oliver Let'ch'win. Sleaze merchant if ever there was one!!!

Hmmm. He'd make a great home secretary. Unlike the Labour lot (as exemplified by Blunket, surely the most evil man to ever hold office) and so called "Liberal" lot (who are actually spectacularly illiberal, liking nothing more than spewing out laws) he's actually a "live and let live" libertarian. Only one I can think of in a senior frontbench position in any party, actually.

I've been trying to get a decent cabinet together from the combined talents of all the parrties.. and struggling. It's not like a few years ago when it would have been easy (Patten in charge, Hurd in the foreign office, Clarke in Treasury, Howe / Portillo as Home secretary and Heseltine at DTI: nice who's who of great tory leaders the tory party never had 'cos they were too rabidly right wing to trust them): these days I'm struggling beyond Blair at the foreign office, Brown in his current job (please not leader), Letwin as home secretary and Kennedy as court jester.

My own manifesto would be straight-forward enough though: get rid of at least 10% of all laws (I reckon you could probably scrap 20% or 30% without getting rid of anything that contentious) and ensure that all future governments were obliged to take more off the statute book than they put on. Oh, and make sure every other bugger had to do the same (especially local councils who like nothing more than banning things) and that officious busy-bodies who like enforcing things have a hard time doing so.

Oh, I'd also get rid of the entirity of so-called "health and safety" and make it a criminal offense for any person, company, council or whatever to try and decide for me what I should deem an "acceptable" risk: no more railings stoping me crossing the road where I want to, no fences keeping me away from bonfire-night bonfires, no signs telling me where I can and cannot swim and so on.

[Occasional Fan]

Originally Posted by Rachael

... Blunkett, surely the most evil man to ever hold office ...

Can't let this pass, Rachael, I'm afraid. I don't much like the Minister for Pensions and Work either, but last week you were quibbling over the use of the word "evil" to describe Hitler and Stalin. Try as I might, I can't put David Blunkett alongside these chaps and make a comparison.

[Rachael]

OK.. I meant in this country. I can think of no other officeholder so rabid. He's the knee jerk officeholder from hell whose knee jerk reactions are almost always {a} ill-considered; {b} extreme; and {c} pernicious. If it can be banned he wants to ban it. If it can be regulated he wants to regulate it. The guy must have the most fantastic ratio of laws created per hour in office of any minister in recent history.

I also find him riddled with prejudice and not averse to being malicious. A really thoroughly detestable man.

[Occasional Fan]

No argument with that, Rachael. It's Blunkett's basic assumption that authoritarianism is the answer to everything which irks me. But Charles Clarke, Tony Blair and - well, actually most of his mates - have the same streak. Still can't see them as evil though, nor Hitler and Stalin as anything but. Still, no need to re-open that one.

[Rachael]

Originally Posted by Occasional Fan

It's Blunkett's basic assumption that authoritarianism is the answer to everything which irks me. But Charles Clarke, Tony Blair and - well, actually most of his mates - have the same streak.

Blunkett strikes me as more dangerous than the rest as {a} he seems quite easily moved to disdain, disgust, revulsion, hatred and contempt; and {b} he appears to allow his thinking to be dictated by these crude emotional reactions. He's the only one of the front benchers, I suspect, who'd openly delight in the persecution of toffs, in the suffering of the well to do and so on.

Blair tends to get himself into holes through trusting people too much: he tends to listen to advocates and see the positives in things and not notice the negatives (the cup half full syndrome if you like) and then come a bit of a cropper as awkward facts he'd not given due attention to come back to bite him in the ****.

Blunkett strikes me as very different: he just doesn't give a damn - if he thinks something is right then as far as he's concerned.. that's that.

Blunkett's also far worse than Blair on contempt for the judiciary and for judicial process.. and is uniquely scary in his complete and utter contempt for anything that stands in the way of elected dictatorship: he's a rank populist who hates the fact that anything or anyone, from British Judges through British Treaties to international bodies like the European Court of Human Rights, should stand in the way of his mandate to act.

I just don't think he's even the slightest regard for fears about "The tyranny of the majority".. and that just plain scares me.

[Occasional Fan]

Fair points, well made! I have to say I am very disappointed to see him back on the front bench so soon.