October 2005 Archives

The latest tidbit in the tedious saga of disgraced ex-Home Secretary David Blunkett's confused private life and businees dealings is revealed in today's Independent of Sunday report.

" Revealed: Blunkett broke rules on job with DNA firm By Francis Elliott, Whitehall Editor Published: 30 October 2005

David Blunkett broke official anti-sleaze rules when he took a lucrative City job earlier this year, an Independent on Sunday investigation has discovered.

His breach of the Ministerial Code last night prompted demands for his resignation and a full investigation"

The Independent on Sunday claims to have another leaked document, detailing some possible "cash for Peerages" candidates.

However, some of them appear to be only relatively small financial donors, and the biggest, e.g. Lakshmi "£;2 million donation" Mittal have not yet been "honoured".

Forking out a relatively small amount of cash, in return for lots of Government subsidies, by participating in the controversial City Academies scheme, seems to be the path to enoblement. The undeserved enoblement of NuLabour political commissar Lord Adonis, i the architect of this scheme .is an ongoing scandal.

The Sunday Times has two contrasting stories, about armoured vehicles:

The Sunday Times October 23, 2005

The gym, James! Cherie gets chauffeured armoured car
Jon Ungoed-Thomas

CHERIE BLAIR has become the first prime minister’s spouse to be given an official government car and driver for her personal use, including shopping trips and visits to the gym.
Use of the car, a bullet-proof Vauxhall Omega, is estimated to be costing taxpayers more than £50,000 a year. She also has the use of a Ford Galaxy people carrier as backup.

The government disclosed the information last week after a freedom of information request by The Sunday Times. She was given the car in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks but the perk was never disclosed.

A Cabinet Office spokesman confirmed last week: “The prime minister’s wife has been allocated a government car. Prime minister’s spouses have not previously had [official] cars, but it’s a recent change we have made in the light of a security review.”

However, it seems, that the penny pinching Treasury and Ministry of Defence do not appear to have provided enough armoured landrovers etc. for all of our military personnel in Iraq.

The Sharpener has a fair review of the heavily trailed "A Very Social Secretary", about some of the David Blunkett scandals, with which the new digital TV channel More4 was launched on Monday night.

There are several events involving Blunkett since his appointment as Home Secretary in 2001, which did not make it into this fictional dramatic account:

Another week, another sleazy tabloid story about David Blunkett. Why is he allowed to be a Cabinet Minister ?

The Sunday Times reports:

The Sunday Times October 09, 2005

Blunkett may face business pay probe
Robert Winnett, Whitehall Correspondent
THE cabinet minister David Blunkett is this weekend under pressure to explain his financial and personal links to a controversial businessman who introduced him to a 29-year-old blonde.

Blunkett was paid by a company owned by the family of Tariq Siddiqi, a flamboyant businessman with a chequered past. The company said he was paid for almost three months’ work. If this is true, Blunkett should have made a formal declaration to parliament.

Will NuLabour take notice of this article in a Sunday Newspaper, or will they continue to spin and news manage their disgraceful failure, as current holders of the revolving presidencies of both the G8 and the European Union, to lead by example and to sign and ratify the Council for Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking of Human Beings, which they should have signed in Warsaw back in May this year ?

The Independent on Sunday reports:

"Britain's shameless role in helping sex traffickers keep thousands of women in slavery

Those who try to escape prostitution are branded illegal immigrants then deported home to disgrace and poverty

By Sophie Goodchild, Marie Woolf and Tom Anderson
Published: 09 October 2005

Criminal vice-masters are making millions profiting from trafficked women in a growing illegal trade, which MPs will this week claim the Government is failing to stop.

shameful rather than shameless would be a better word for this ongoing scandal.