So What top EU job will Blunket get......

[Loosehead]

The rules of New Labour: twice resigned from the Cabinet = Top job with snout in EU trough. Any speculation as to which carraige of the gravy train Blunkett will end up on?

[youngmafbog]

Well he seems to have the right credentials for the plushest one there is !. Move out the way Mandy

[Ward-Minter]

I heard he was joining Stevie Wonder in a Ray Charles tribute band.

[Dom Tuk]

You see Mr Blair finds him honourable with no sain on his character. say that to the husband of the woman he got impregnated.

But then the man who has signed the death warrant of a 100,000 iraqis will find this no problem

[january_bug]

He's made plenty of mistakes in his personal life, and some in his professional life to, but re an affair, it takes two to tango. In fact, in most instances where one of the people in a relationship is actually married, I'd say there were 3 people who's actions played their part.

I think he will get some sort of job from the government, and I would hope that he will be good at it. I appreciate the extra burden on the shoulders of politicians, but if every director in this country got forced by the media to resign, for errors of judgement in his or her personal life, we'd have a LOT of leaderless companies. I do find it a pity that the career of a cabinet minister is now determined by the tabloids, but then it's an increasingly fair reflection on the state of the country.

It was also interesting to note the comments of a political observer on the news last night (my apologies I forget the Channel, time, and name of the interviewee) that if we delved only a little deeper into their private lives, plenty of MPs would be found to be having affairs with people of the same or opposite sex, married or not. Now, if we hounded everyone of them out in one fell swoop, we'd be in serious trouble.

On the errors of judgement in not declaring his employment/consultancy work, fair enough, if proven, he deserve punishment for that. But I'd suggest that the affair is a separate matter, and one that, if brought into this matter, only weakens the anti-Blunkett arguement.

That said Dom Tuk, it's your thread and I'm sure you'll say what you want anyway! :-)

[Loosehead]

It's mine, all mine, (the thread JB, the thread)

[january_bug]

Oh god loosehead - I'm so sorry!!! how silly of me!!! Durrrrrrr!!! Oh well - You say what you like then! :-)

[copippin]

whichever carriage he gets into on the gravy train,I hope they don't mind dogs.The poor animal is the innocent party in all this.

[don1]

Blunkett is an embarrassment to the labour party and to commoon sense.

Steven Downing is a mentally retarded man who spent 27 years in prison for a crime which he clearly did not commit

this moron Blunkett sent him a bill for �150,000 to cover his bed and board for that 27 years which Blunkett says he should pay because being an innocent man means he was not entitled to free bed and board.

If Blunkett isn't the lowest form of mentality on this planet I dread to think what the lowest has done.

[Gef]

I bet you are proud of that one Ward-Minter. Did you read it in the Daily Mail? It's not funny.

[Zen]

Is it true ?
Arsene Wenger has asked if he can have the dog ?

[jno]

sick joke WM! But, harrumph, sort of funny. I do feel kind of sorry for Blunkett this time though. Apparently the rule he broke was something like 'you should declare your jobs'. Not you must declare them... but apparently that's what it really meant. I'd have got it wrong too. Ambiguous laws ought to be interpreted in favour of the defendant, and I think he should have got off this time.

Having said that, he should never have been allowed back into the cabinet so quickly after the last time (where had clearly abused his office), so I'm not actually sorry he's gone.

[Dom Tuk]

jan Bug....honourable man who put his married ex girlfriend through the mill when she was heavily pregnant. He insisted on paternity tests at that critical time. He lied about fast track visa for nany. Insisted that he had done nothing wrong. Conitnued to live in govt paid home claiming security threats.

Stated that he has done nothing wrong all throughout before his first resignation. Said last night he has done nothing wrong. these men have to be hounded out..they will not go on their own.

So you think he will sell those shares now.....honourable my back side

[jno]

well Dom Tuk now that he's been chased out of office because of the shares, I reckon he's entitled to keep them. As I mentioned above, I think he's been convicted under a really rubbish law. Can't blame him for the paternity tests either. It's the queue-jumping by the nanny that sticks in my gullet - that and the fact that he was a real hardliner who used to berate others for minor misdeeds while taking a much more charitable view of his own ones. A few years in the wilderness to ponder the results of his own hypocrisy would be in order.

[january_bug]

But Dom Tuk - why did you drag the affair in!?! That's very tabloid of you to be unable to stick to the political issues. Strange as I HAD thought you were able to do that. Or is it that you feel your other arguments are so weak that you have to resort to blaming him for the fact that another man couldn't keep his wife happy, so she had an affair!? I honestly had thought you were a better debater and advocate than that.

[Dom Tuk]

Jan when i raised the issue of the affair it was not as a stick to beat Blunkett with but rather my disgust at Blairs description of Blunkett 'leaving the job wth no stain....honorable man'. What does it take to become dishonourable in Blairs eyes.

Have been far too busy these days hence cannot devote much time to answers here.

[january_bug]

But the affair had nothing to do with the resignation this time. Anyway, I suspect that you, like everyone else (including me) adjusts the bar of "honorable" according to who it's being applied to and when it suits them. If it was a politician who you admired, and who stood for a party you supported, I suspect you would be more likely to forgive him mistakes in his personal life. That's not a criticism, and I make be making a false assumption, but I think most people shift the goalposts, even if subconsciously, when it suits them!