Recently in David Blunkett Category

The Daily Mail reports that a conservative think-tank, the Conservative think-tank the Centre for Social Justice seems to be about to go insane and lose all credibility, by employing the twice disgraced, technologically incompetent former Labour Cabinet Minister David Blunkett, whose scandalous private life interfered with his public one, again and again.

Labour stalwart David Blunkett set to join Coalition war on dole cheats

By Simon Walters
Last updated at 9:17 AM on 15th August 2010

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Although the CSJ is independent, it was set up by Mr Duncan Smith, who now acts as its patron, and its reports have considerable influence in Whitehall.

A CSJ source said: 'The organisation has been having discussions with Mr Blunkett. We believe he is genuinely interested in helping us to find lasting solutions to deep-seated issues concerning employment and welfare. He is a radical free thinker and can combine it with a wealth of practical experience.

'Iain Duncan Smith has considerable respect for his views. We are keen to work with people from every part of the political spectrum to tackle the fundamental problems facing Britain.'

Politicians like Blunkett are one of "the fundamental problems facing Britain."

Mr Blunkett told The Mail on Sunday: 'I have been talking with the Centre for Social Justice.' He declined to give further details.

How much money is he demanding ?

What are they thinking of ? Blunkett is a failed NuLabour politician, who wasted billions of pounds of public money and vastly increased the burden of bureaucratic form filling which public servants have to struggle with, in all the Departments he was inflicted on.

They in turn, with Blunkett's enthusiastic support, then vastly increased the snooping and privacy intrusions on innocent members of the public, in pursuit of these inept policies.

When Blunkett was in charge of the Department for Work and Pensions, he did absolutely nothing effective against " dole cheats", so why should anyone listen to him now ?

Remember that under the Labour government the inequality between rich and poor actually increased, in spite of all their slogans and sound bites.

Whoever funds the "Centre for Social Justice" should veto any association with Blunkett, as it will destroy any credibility they may have.

More Parliamentary Written Answers, to Questions askked by the Conservative MP Eric Pickles, on the subject of the "Disgrace and Favour" house last occupied by the notorious, multiply disgraced former Labour Cabinet Minister David Blunkett:

The Government has been dithering for over 2 years now, about selling off this property, valued at £ 2.4 million, but they do now seem to have instructed the estate agents Savills UK (Sloane Street branch), to start putting it onto the property market.

See the previous blog article Disgrace and Favour official residences:

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62 South Eaton Place, is on the southern edge of the much more posher district of Belgravia. Despite this, it looks rather prison like, with its bullet proof and blast resistant windows and curtains and CCTV cameras. It is right next door to The Belgravia public house, and within line of sight of the Belgravia Police Station, and the Victoria Coach Station terminus.

The Daily Mirror reveals that Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott has admitted to having an extra-marital affiar with his secretary.

This scoop would normally have been the headline story in the rest of the media, but for Home Secretary Charles Clarkes attacks on the media on Monday, followed by yesterdays admission of utter incompetence by the Home Office in not considering for deportation, at least 1023 foreign criminals who hhd been sent to prison over the last 7 years.

Apparently over 160 cases were ones where there was an reccomendation from the Court which sentenced these offenders that they should be deported when they had serveed their sentence.

How is it that the bureaucracies of th ePrison and Probation and Immihration services, all of which report to the Home Secreatry, cannot coordinate something so simple, where the people to deported are not hiding somewhere "underground" as illegal immigrants, but are actually physically locked up in prison ?

Apparently 288 of the total were not delat with properly since August last year, when Charles Clarke had been warned by the National Audit Office of the problem back in July.

It therefore appears as if the problem has got even worse, directly under the mis-management of Charles Clarke

Charles Clarke is refusing to resign, so far, but how why should he be allowed to continue as Home Secreatry ?

Surely he has no special skills or experience which would make sorting out the problem immediately any swifter ?

Charles Clarke now seems to be claiming that he did offer to resign before last Christmas, according to this Press Association report

Ironically, even doubly disgraced ex-Home Secretary David Blunkett has, apparently, called for "heads to roll" , although, not, of course that of Charles Clarke, at least in public.

It was Blunkett who also presided over the same incompetent and shambolic Immigration and Nationality Directorate scandals, which lead to the resignation of Home Office Immigration Minsiter Beverkly Hughes is, of course partly to blame.

WIll this latest demonstration of sheer bureaucratic incompetence be blamed on the "computer system" and lead to a demand for "more resources" and even more legislation ?

Who is the likely replacement for Charles Clarke as Home Secretary, ?

Will he or she actully concentrate on getting the Home Office to fulfill its plain vanilla basic statutory duties competently, instead of trying to social engnieer society with a flurry of ill thought out and ever more complicated legislation and unworkable high tech "magic" technological fixes, which they are incompetent to implement ?

Will the other NuLabour Cabinet Minsters like Tessa "9 mortgaes" Jowell and Lord "Honours for City Academies" Adonis and Margaret "Let's hype up the BNP" Hodge, be thankful that the limited attention span of the press and broadcast media have now seemingly forgotten about, their recent scandals ?

Where is the Tony Blair / Lord Levy "Loans for Peerages" scandal being reported now ?

More good analysis and comments at Blairwatch

ITV reports

Blunkett to publish memoirs
10.46AM, Mon Apr 3 2006

Former Cabinet minister David Blunkett is to publish his memoirs in October.

[...]

Bloomsbury Publishing promised The Blunkett Tapes will be a "rigorously honest self-portrait as well as an astonishingly cogent and intimate insight into New Labour's years in power, the personalities, the triumphs and the debates".

The memoirs were originally recorded on to tape as "journals" by Mr Blunkett but have now been transcribed and will also be published in Braille.

Mr Blunkett said: "I have chosen to work with Bloomsbury because they understood the nature of the book I wanted to write and will harness all their publishing expertise to the project."

Presumably the inevitable leaks from this book will be used to manipulate the Gordon Brown / Tony Blair power struggle before and during the Labour Party Conference in the Autumn.

Why are former Cabinet Ministers allowed to reveal confidential discussions from whilst they were in office, but nobody else is ?

Another round of NuLabour sleaze stories in the Sunday newspapers:

• Loans rather than donations to evade the Election Commission disclosure rules on political party funding.

• Would Cherie Blair really be able to command such a large fee if it were not for her No. 10 Downing Street connection ?

• More details of other mortgage application forms which Tessa Jowell signed.

• No Sunday would be complete without the notorious David Blunkett yapping away for media attention.

According to Guido Fawkes, the notorious ex Cabinet Minister David Blunket may actually now have moved out of the "Disgrace and Favour" Government owned £3 million (?) house in South Eaton Place in Belgravia , London.

This is only a mere 5 months after his latest Ministerial resignation, in an area of London where similar houses are rented out for at least £2,000 a week i.e. at least £32,000 worth of free accomodation since early November 2005..

The Sunday Times has some details of emails released under the Freedom of Information Act, which imply that David Blunkett was starting to exert his influence on behalf of DNA Biosciences whilst he was Secretary of State for Work and pensions.

The Sunday Times February 05, 2006

Blunkett DNA firm given help by his department’s staff
EVIDENCE has emerged that civil servants at David Blunkett’s former department intervened on behalf of a company in which he had a shareholding, writes Jon Ungoed-Thomas.

The new evidence, in e-mails released last week under the Freedom of Information Act, shows officials working under him at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) helped ensure the firm was given court work to carry out paternity tests. This followed lobbying from the company’s executives.

The e-mails are the first direct evidence of officials helping the company, which has now ceased trading.

The DWP has previously said simply that there had been “no meetings” between the company and officials.

[...]

Were any of the officials in the Department for Work and Pensions or the Court Service aware of David Blunkett's business links with this company ?

The Mail on Sunday has an article on David Blunkett's

Blunkett to quit grace-and-favour home, at last!
11:51am 29th January 2006

David Blunkett has revealed he is finally going to move out of his luxury grace-and-favour home -three months after resigning from the Cabinet for the second time.

Mr Blunkett was allowed to hold onto the £3million London house for security reasons after quitting as Home Secretary in December 2004.

He did not move out straight away following his departure as Work and Pensions Secretary last November for the same reason. But he now says he will leave within weeks

"I gave myself three months to find somewhere and the Prime Minister was good enough to say 'take your time, but obviously we all know you have got to get out because you no longer have the position to be able to occupy it'," he said.

"I have found somewhere and I shall be moving within a matter of weeks. But as anyone involved with surveyors and lawyers knows you can't actually predict these things."

He told the BBC's Sunday AM programme the furnished Belgravia residency has been his home for eight years.

Why was David Blunkett given the grace and favour house "normally assigned to the Home Secretary" back in late 1997 when he became Education Secretary, well before he became Home Secretary in mid 2001 ?

Rent free

He said he had paid the bills but not the rent because that would have made it harder for the Government to turf him out.

If Blunkett was an honourable man, that would have presented no difficulty whatsoever.

The allocation of grace-and-favour residences is in the gift of the Prime Minister. Mr Blunkett's home is traditionally occupied by the Home Secretary.

When exactly was this property purchased by the Government ? How long has it been used by "the Home Secretary" ? Michael Howard in the last Conservative Government lived there, but does that make it a "tradition" ?

The Observer has yet another David Blunkett lobbying sleaze story, which seems to confirm our view that since Blunkett was obviously not bringing any DNA technical expertise to DNA Bioscience, it was his contacts within Government which he was really selling, less than 6 months since having been a Cabinet Minister.

Are there any business or financial dealings that he has been involved with that are not somehow tainted ?

Blunkett helped tycoon's bid to lobby ministers over policy

Antony Barnett, investigations editor
Sunday January 15, 2006
The Observer

Fresh questions have been raised over the relationship between the government and wealthy businessmen after The Observer discovered a remarkable secret tape from a property developer asking for special access to ministers.

The audio cassette obtained by The Observer was discovered in the offices of the DNA firm at the centre of the scandal that cost David Blunkett his ministerial career. It contains a spoken letter dictated to Blunkett by the chairman of a real estate firm owned by Pervaiz Naviede - the multi-millionaire financier behind DNA Bioscience, where Blunkett worked as a director and held £15,000 in shares.

The tape reveals how Naviede's company asked Blunkett for help in lobbying the Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, and the Chancellor, Gordon Brown. The company was hoping to profit from a change in complex VAT rules that govern the renovation of residential property and wanted local authorities to be 'encouraged' to sell them more council flats.

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The Daily Mail has a story about David Blunkett 's Council Tax being paid by his former Ministerial Departments on the fortified "£3 million" Grace and Favour house at 62 South Eaton Place, next to the Belgravia Pub, in Belgravia, London.

Why is he still occupying these Government owned premises, so many weeks after his latest resignation in disgrace oat the beginning of November 2005 ?

There are still unanswered questions about how much of a tax benefit in kind this Grace and Favour house has been worth to Blunkett.