Christmas Lunch 04
Office Christmas Lunch before Sue Ryder event.
[photograph from hero in neighbouring office - Bill Wiggin MP]
David Blunkett biography
Amusing detail in this Review in The Sunday Telegraph today:
“Pollard tells the hilarious story of Blunkett and other senior ministers arriving at Buckingham Palace to exchange the seals of office. Prescott walked towards the Queen, nodded, kneeled, recited his oath and walked away forgetting to take the seals of office with him ‘and leaving the Queen holding them vacantly’. Straw mangled his oath. Then he had to lead Blunkett up to the dais. Instead of placing him so that he faced the Queen, he positioned the new Home Secretary at 45 degrees to the monarch, facing a statue of George IV, to which he addressed his oath. The Queen looked at her ministers and said, ‘I hope you run the country better than you’ve managed over the last 15 minutes’”.
Blunkett Resignation rules the airwaves
Looks like Blunkett’s new book/biography will make interesting reading judging by Boris Johnson’s conclusions in his column this week:
It wasn’t Nannygate: it was telling the truth about Labour
My mobile has been throbbing for the past hour with calls from the nice telly people wanting me to go on and gloat about the extinction of David Blunkett, and for the past hour I have been sitting here trying to work up some enthusiasm.
I wish I could feel more happiness, somehow, in this news. I am a Tory MP. I am supposed to rejoice. There he is, one of Blair’s key lieutenants, banjaxed by events. I should be capering around the room and pant-hooting like a gibbon, and yet I can’t help wondering whether I am alone in feeling melancholy at the ruin of Blunkett.
Whatever you think of his conduct of the Home Office – and I am not a fan – it is astonishing that a blind man could begin to manage a job like that. Whatever you think of his prosecution of his own militia amoris – and, again, I have my views – he is plainly, like Othello, a man who loved not wisely, but too well, and one whose eyes, albeit unused to the melting mood, could be seen on Channel 4 News last night dropping tears as fast as the Arabian trees their medicinal gum.
He is deserving of, and will receive, a great deal of sympathy over the next few days. But since this column is also famously a place of ruthless analysis, I will overcome my gloom, and tell you exactly why David Blunkett left office last night, and it certainly wasn’t for the reason officially given out.
Lord Butler interview in The Spectator
In his interview with Lord Butler, Boris Johnson uncovers startling views of top mandarins about the extent of the disillusionment within the higher ranks of the Civil Service with the current style of Government.
Lord Butler of Brockwell was Tony Blair’s first Cabinet Secretary and headed last year’s inquiry into the failures of intelligence before the Iraq war. He clearly wanted to unburden himself about the way Labour governs the country and Parliament’s “shameful” inability to control the executive. He was critical of the growing influence of political appointees in Whitehall and frank about their penchant for “getting the best headlines tomorrow”. He believes that Mr Blair is too concerned with “selling, central control and headlines”.
Daily Telegraph comment click here.
Safe Cycling and the Road Safety Bill
These are dark days, my friends, and it would be quite wrong for any of us to cycle around London without lights. Which is why it is all the more depressing that in Blair’s Britain they steal your bike lights within five minutes, and you are lucky if they don’t steal the saddle and the wheels as well.
So for the last two years I have used something called a Danlite, a magical device that fits in the side of your handlebars, winking white to the front and red to the rear.
And when you park your bike, you simply unscrew the Danlite (it is about the size of a large walnut) and put it in your pocket.
Be bright.
All night.
Danlite.
