When David Blunkett moved to he Home Office in 2001 he boasted that he would make his predecessor, Jack Straw, "look like a woolly liberal".
Few people thought it was possible - and while I wouldn't want to let Straw off the hook, certainly Blunkett ended up as the most rightwing Home Secretary ever.
He introduced internment without trial for suspected foreign terrorists, but when the Law Lords declared this illegal (see page I1) in the dying days of his tenure, he still refused to release them.
His introduction of ASBO's and plans to introduce ID cards (see this page) is criminalising working-class communities, and putting more and more people, behind bars.
Under Blunkett, the prison population has risen to more than 75,000.
Held in appalling conditions, which Blunkett has consistently ignored, growing numbers of these prisoners are driven to suicide, slashing open their veins with slivers of glass or razor-blade, hanging themselves from heating Jon Rogers, who wrote the article below on ID cards, is the candidate of Unison United Left in the forthcoming General Secretary elections later this month.
Jon, who is branch secretary of Lambeth UNISON and a member of the union's National Executive, has received almost 50 branch nominations for this challenge to incumbent Dave Prentis. Rogers, a staunch opponent of
Blunkett has shown no
sympathy for his victims
pipes only inches above the
floor, or choking on their own
vomit through swallowing
pills.
Callously, Blunkett has
refused to meet the mothers of
some of the young women
driven to these acts of desperation, while his only comment
on prison sticides has been to
quip that he was inclined to
open a bottle of champagne
after Harold Shipman killed
himself.
Black people, and increasingly the Muslim community
in the wake of the "war
against terror" have suffered UNISON: Left challenge to Prentis particular under his regime. On page 21 we report the latest in the campaign of Roger Sylvester's family for justice.
While Roger was killed while Straw was at the Home Office, Blunkett was happy to see the judicial review that led to the "unlawful killing" verdict quashed.
Sylvester is one of many people who has died either in police custody, or like Harry Stanley, at their hands
These are some of the reasons why no one on the left will cry to see Blunkett depart from office. But what of the reasons he resigned? Should we have sympathy for the man, if not for the politician?
I don't think so. I don't care what politicians do with their "private life" so long as it doesn't involve harming others through acts such as rape or sexual abuse.
But I found the Observer headline on December 19 pretty incongruous:
"Blunkett: I'm a working class victim of the rich".
Its true that Kimberley Quinn and her friends are pretty comfortably off - but Blunkett been a well-paid minister since 1979 (with a tion of ID cards. supporter of Franco. He the war in Iraq, challenged the fact that the UNISON delegation to Labour Party conference broke the union's policy to support the government. Rogers, who lives in Brighton, has also been a strong supporter of the Brighton Teaching Assistants dispute (see p5)
For further information about Jon Roger's campaign and UNISON United Left see www.unisonunitedleft.org.uk
ministerial salary in 2003 of £71,433!). And this seemed to be part of the whole spin to paint Blunkett as victim. But he was the one taking a seven-month pregnant woman, with existing complications in the pregnancy, to court. Of course the breakdown of relationships, especially if they involve children, are usually painful. But it can hardly been seen as caring to the "little lad" to make him the focus of a highprofile access case in this way. It seems Blunkett is treating the child more as a possession than a human being! Meanwhile, back at the Home Office, we can expect very little change from the incumbent, Charles Clarke, who has shown no more commitment to civil liberties than his two predecesSUS. Now is the time to step up to release the detainees in Belmarsh, to release all immigration prisoners, to bring to justice those responsible for deaths in custody and to stop the introducfrom Parliament. www.uul.ora.uk