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  Monday 20th December 2004  Politics   Powered by Yeast Logic
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Britain left unprotected as Blunkett jumps ship

Heads must roll after shameful fiasco
by Tristram O'Specious

The recent departure of former home secretary David Blunkett — coupled to an elementary bungle in the timetabling of its legislative programme — may not only have cost the government dear but left the nation woefully unprotected against a "current and serious threat" from the forces of global terrorism, known to be planning a wave of synchronised bombings and 9/11 style hijackings in the UK.

Naturally enough in the prevailing climate of fear the Home Office was keen to introduce its flagship Identity Cards Bill at the earliest opportunity after the queen's speech, paving the way for compulsory adoption nationwide by 2012. Anyone planning or perpetrating an atrocity in the intervening years will stick out like a sore thumb, finding it impossible to get hold of a card, and be swiftly brought to justice.

Yet, in a scarcely credible oversight nobody stopped to consider that the fate of the Bill was intimately bound up with that of its principal sponsor the home secretary himself. Any stain on his unblemished reputation would be seized on by the irresponsible wreckers determined to scupper this essential package of security measures out of pure spite, leaving Britain dangerously exposed to the rising tide of terror.

Meanwhile, the Draft Bill on Ministerial Ethics and Accountability, aimed at clarifying once and for all the unwritten conventions concerning standards of behaviour in government, which only needed a swift airing in the Commons to obtain cross-party consensus and dispel any whiff of wrongdoing at the Home Office, languished unaccountably on the back-burner as the crisis over Mr Blunkett's private life deepened.

The four essential clauses in the Bill that could have saved the day if only they had got on to the statute book in time are reproduced below.

1. In the interests of public accountability, a strict separation must be maintained between the execution by Cabinet Ministers of their public duties and what they get up to in private. The latter is strictly off-limits, to be enjoyed without fear of reproval or investigation. Thus, the deployment of government chauffeurs and limousines on missions of purely personal gratification is in no way liable to censure, belonging as it does to the private, domestic sphere of a Minister's activities, as in the case of a Home Secretary who, frustrated by mountains of paperwork at his Derbyshire home over the weekend, and disdaining a solitary hand-job, issues the order for his beloved mistress to be conveyed post-haste from her London residence for a fuc*k.

2. At the first hint of any alleged impropriety it is the duty of the Cabinet Minister whose conduct has been impugned to launch an investigation in order to "lay the accusation to rest," ensuring that its terms of reference are confined to the public arena as defined in clause 1. The enquiry must be conducted by a knight of the realm whose impeccable record of involvement in important government initiatives breeds public confidence that an impartial verdict will be reached, in accordance with the Prime Minister's edict concerning his besmirched colleague that there is "no doubt at all that he will be exonerated".

3. (a) Notions of public morality have changed considerably since the days when ministerial hanky-panky was ruthlessly exposed by the media, bringing shame, even resignation upon the accused. In these more enlightened times extra-marital relief is recognised as acceptable political practice, of minimal interest even to the tabloids. However, certain protocols must be observed. A senior government minister intent on bedding an attractive newlywed of his recent acquaintance will of course have to manage without for a while, mindful of the bride's statutory eight-week period of adjustment between her nuptials and the inaugural Cabinet fuc*k.

(b) Should the relationship develop, and the repeated exercise of Cabinet privilege be blessed with ministerial issue then the interests of the child are paramount. Thus, it is not only right but obligatory for a paternal Home Secretary to pursue a tug of love policy that keeps the child in the headlines, positioned between two doting fathers of impeccable credentials striving to outdo each other in affection.

4. The tried and trusted maxim to which Ministers have had recourse in the past, that any wrongdoing lies not in the act itself but in the act of getting caught, is no longer acceptable in the modern age, based as it is on a serious flaw, a flaw that becomes more obvious every time a Minister gets caught. The precedent is now established by the Iraq Survey Group's report in September that it is the intention to, for example, accumulate weapons of mass destruction, that is paramount in determining guilt. Thus it is clear that a head over heels Home Secretary who recklessly cuts through red tape in the Immigration Department to ensure continuity of care for his love-child without any intention of getting caught, is acting entirely within the bounds of propriety.

After the first reading of the Bill the shadow home secretary David Davis led a ragged bunch of neanderthals in a brief show of opposition, claiming it represented a major constitutional change that should be put to the nation in a referendum. The risible suggestion was soon quashed by the overwhelming majority of moderate progressives in the House who pointed out that on the contrary it was a mere tidying up and formal codification of existing practice.

Sadly, this rush to the barricades came too lateto close down the argument over Mr Blunkett's behaviour and save his career. David Blunkett has been badly let down by the bungling oafs in the Prime Minister's office responsible for the delay. The Rockall Times calls for heads to roll, for the guilty parties to step forward, issue a full apology and resign, drawing a line once and for all under this shameful fiasco which has deprived the government and the British people of the one man capable of securing the Home Front in the next critical phase of the War on Terror™.

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