The English Sense of Justice - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

The_Dunedan · 03-15-2004, 08:10 AM

http://www.sundayherald.com/40592

We locked you up in jail for 25 years and you were innocent all along? That’ll be £80,000 please

Blunkett charges miscarriage of justice victims ‘food and lodgings’
By Neil Mackay, Home Affairs Editor

WHAT do you give someone who’s been proved innocent after spending the best part of their life behind bars, wrongfully convicted of a crime they didn’t commit?
An apology, maybe? Counselling? Champagne? Compensation? Well, if you’re David Blunkett, the Labour Home Secretary, the choice is simple: you give them a big, fat bill for the cost of board and lodgings for the time they spent freeloading at Her Majesty’s Pleasure in British prisons.

On Tuesday, Blunkett will fight in the Royal Courts of Justice in London for the right to charge victims of miscarriages of justice more than £3000 for every year they spent in jail while wrongly convicted. The logic is that the innocent man shouldn’t have been in prison eating free porridge and sleeping for nothing under regulation grey blankets.

Blunkett’s fight has been described as “outrageous”, “morally repugnant” and the “sickest of sick jokes”, but his spokesmen in the Home Office say it’s a completely “reasonable course of action” as the innocent men and women would have spent the money anyway on food and lodgings if they weren’t in prison. The government deems the claw-back ‘Saved Living Expenses’.

Paddy Hill was one of the Birmingham Six. He spent 16 years behind bars for the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings by the IRA. Hill now lives on a farm with his wife and children near Beith in Scotland. He has been charged £50,000 for living expenses by the Home Office.

It wasn’t until two years ago that Hill was finally awarded £960,000 in compensation. However, during the years since his release, while waiting for the pay-out, the government had given him advances of around £300,000. When his compensation came through, the £300,000 was taken back along with interest on the interim payments charged at 23% – that cost him a further £70,000.

“The whole system is absurd,” Hill said. “I’m so angry about what has happened to me. I try and tell people about being charged for bed and board in jail and they can’t believe it.

“When I left prison I was given no training for freedom – no counselling or psychological preparation. Yet the guilty get that when they are released. To charge me for the food I ate and the cell I slept in is almost as big an injustice as fitting me up in the first place.

“While I was in prison, my family lost their home, yet they get no compensation. But the state wants its money back. It’s like being kicked in the head when someone has beat you already.

“I have to put up with this, yet there has not been one police officer convicted of fitting people up. The Home Office had no shortage of money to keep me in jail or to run a charade of a trial.

“But they had enough money to frame me. Nevertheless, when it comes to paying out compensation for ruining my life they happily rip me to shreds.”

Hill is not leading the legal action against the government – instead he has handed the baton to another high-profile victim of miscarriage of justice: Mike O’Brien.

O’Brien spent 10 years in jail wrongly convicted of killing a Cardiff newsagent. His baby daughter died while he was in prison and he was charged £37,500 by the Home Office for his time behind bars.

Hill said he cannot lead the legal fight as the Birmingham Six have fought every legal action together, but now three of them are over 70 and Hill believes it is too much to ask them to join him in taking on the government yet again.

He said he was also worried about the compensation payments for the other members of the Birmingham Six being affected if they joined him in court against the government.

“The establishment hate me and people like me as we proved them wrong,” he said. “They either want to ignore us or hurt us.”

O’Brien took the Home Office to court last March and won, but Blunkett appealed the decision. On Tuesday, the rights and wrongs of the government policy will be decided at the Royal Courts.

O’Brien said: “Morally, the position of the government is just outrageous. It shows total contempt for the victims of miscarriages of justice. It makes me livid.

“I really believe if we win the appeal this week, the government is evil enough to take me to the House of Lords. They are trying to break us. I really think this is personal as far as the government is concerned.

“A government really can’t get much worse than this. But I am confident that we will win as the law and morality are on our side.”

Vincent Hickey, one of the Bridgewater Four who was wrongly convicted for killing a paperboy, was charged £60,000 for the 17 years he spent in jail. He said: “If I had known this I would have stayed on hunger-strike longer, that way I would have had a smaller bill.”

John McManus, of the Scottish Miscarriage of Justice Organisation, said: “This is reprehensible. How can we call ourselves a democratic, civilised society when our government is acting like this?

“The government seems intent on punishing innocent people. The state wants to be paid for making a mistake. It’s hard to believe someone actually thought this policy up. If you tell a child about this they will think it insane.

“Only a sick mind could have invented this policy, yet the government is fighting to retain the right to act like this. It is cruelty with intent. They seem to want to punish people for having the audacity to be innocent.”

The SNP’s shadow justice minister, Nicola Sturgeon, said: “This is outrageous. It is another assault by Blunkett on the rule of law and on civil liberties. These people didn’t chose to go to prison. They were wrongly convicted, and to charge them for it beggars belief.”

The Home Office said an “independent assessor appointed by the Home Secretary takes into acccount the range of costs the prisoner might have incurred had they not been imprisoned”. The spokes man said the assessor was “right” to do this, adding: “Morally, this is reasonable and appropriate.”

‘I was a hostage, now they are billing me’
ROBERT Brown was just a 19-year-old from Glasgow when he was jailed for life for murdering a woman called Annie Walsh in Manchester in 1977. He served 25 years before he was finally freed in 2002, when the courts ruled him innocent of the crime.
He is now facing a bill of around £80,000 for the living expenses he cost the state. For Brown, it is the final straw. An interim payment he was given pending his full compensation offer is exhausted; his mother recently died; his relationship with his girlfriend has fallen apart and he is facing eviction from his home following a mix-up over benefits.

“I feel like ending my life,” he says. “I’ve tried to maintain my dignity, but the state has treated me with nothing but contempt – now they are asking me for money for my bed and board in jail.

“I never contemplated suicide once while I was in prison, but it’s different on the outside. I have received no counselling or support. Society is treating me like something you’d wipe off the bottom of your shoes, but I’m an innocent man and a victim of a terrible injustice.

“It’s horrific. I’ve been out of jail for 14 months and in that time the state has put me through a war of attrition that it never needed to conduct. I feel my life is disintegrating around me.

“Making me pay for my bed and board is abhorrent. I was arrested, fitted up and held hostage for 25 years and now they are going to charge me for being kept as their prisoner against my will.

“Can you think of a more disgusting way to abuse someone? I really feel that my heart is truly and finally broken.”

stevie667 · 03-15-2004, 08:14 AM

STOP

this is NOT the english sense of justice in anyway, i must make that clear.

what you have here is the labour party, something completly different, but as we can see, inept as fuck.

The_Dunedan · 03-15-2004, 08:16 AM

I apologize. Will edit.

stevie667 · 03-15-2004, 08:18 AM

well, i didn't require that, i just wanted to express my extreme anger at the labour party, but if that can be expressed even more, i'm all for it.

The_Dunedan · 03-15-2004, 08:21 AM

Can't seem to edit the subject.

I apologize in advance to all decent British posters. Got really hacked off when I read this, because a proposal to do the same was recently floated here in the States, over in the People's Republic of California. Thankfully, it was defeated.

stevie667 · 03-15-2004, 08:25 AM

the problem is that it's going to go ahead in britain alot further before it gets kicked out, thanks to our all powerful and mighty wise leadership

you just have to hate the labour party for things like this, bunch of inbred morons.

Bill O'Rights · 03-15-2004, 08:40 AM

Is this David Blunkett for real?

stevie667 · 03-15-2004, 08:59 AM

unfortunatly yes.

Strange Famous · 03-15-2004, 11:02 AM

Just another example of the sickness and moral indecency of the British ruling class. Labour and the Tories are as bad as each other, in fact they compete with each other to come up with more ingenious ways to opress and disposess the British people. Blunkett is a criminal, he is more right wing than Tebit, and he should be sacked immediately, along with Blair the liar.

stevie667 · 03-15-2004, 11:12 AM

wow, dude, reality check here, it's 2004, not 1804.
there is no british ruling class anymore, just ruling prats.
and to be honest, it's labour who have been messing up, the tories arn't too bad anymore.

Lebell · 03-15-2004, 11:14 AM

I would have sworn that was something out of the "Onion" if I hadn't read it myself.

Taking away a man's freedom and then charging him for the privilege??

"But we gave you this nice comfortable cell, complete with security system as well as 3 delicious meals a day, what do you mean, you won't pay for them even though you had no choice but to accept??"

stevie667 · 03-15-2004, 11:15 AM

yup, thats the labour party for you

'ignoring the people, detaining the innocent, then charging you for it for over 5 years'

Strange Famous · 03-15-2004, 12:36 PM

The labour party didnt invent the criminal justice act, the poll tax, or attack Argentina for no good reason. Both parties of the ruling capitalist stand equally ashamed in the opinion of right minded working class people. The number of gross and disgusting acts of govenment committed by both parties is staggering, it just hurts more to come from Labour, because as we were surviving Thatcher we believed that they were supposed to be on our side.

Bill O'Rights · 03-15-2004, 12:53 PM

Will one of you Brit's tell me that this Blunkett guy is just trying to get attention, and not trying to push this as an actual agenda.

Please...

Charlatan · 03-15-2004, 01:02 PM

Who says there is no humour in politics...

stevie667 · 03-15-2004, 01:05 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Strange Famous
The labour party didnt invent the criminal justice act, the poll tax, or attack Argentina for no good reason. Both parties of the ruling capitalist stand equally ashamed in the opinion of right minded working class people. The number of gross and disgusting acts of govenment committed by both parties is staggering, it just hurts more to come from Labour, because as we were surviving Thatcher we believed that they were supposed to be on our side.

the argentines invaded british sovereign territory ffs! i think thats a good enough reason to attack them. get your history right.
labour has done a lot worse for this country than the tories, maybe not by much, but they've still done worse.

and i'm afraid this is david blunkets agenda, that along with mandetory ID cards, locking terrorist suspects away indefinatly without trial (but i think he stole that idea from the states) and many other completly shitted policies.

Strange Famous · 03-15-2004, 01:10 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by stevie667
locking terrorist suspects away indefinatly without trial

Ever heard of internment? Northern Ireland?

And Argentina has a clear moral and legal right to the Maldives, the colonialist claim to own it made by Britain and a few crazy sheep farmers is unfit to even be acknowledged in the modern world.

stevie667 · 03-15-2004, 01:24 PM

it doesn't really matter if the argentines have a moral right to them, internationally they are recognised as one of the queens realms, and therefor british property and soil. no-one cares what the argentines think, plain a simple. we own them so there.

theres a difference between northern ireland and blunkets new regime of terror, gimme a couple of hours to find the specifics and links so i don't have to spend my night arguing about something i can prove within minutes.

Bill O'Rights · 03-15-2004, 01:35 PM

OK guys, settle down. Argentina is a whole 'nother matter. Let's try to stay on topic, and not threadjack.

That said, I have to confess to a complete ignorance of British politics. Yeah, yeah, I'm another arogant American. Just tell me how someone like this David Blunkett comes to get to a position of any kind of power to begin with.

Strange Famous · 03-15-2004, 01:39 PM

For one thing, people are often afraid to criticise him for fear that they will look prejudiced for doing it. (he is blind)

stevie667 · 03-15-2004, 01:40 PM

david blunket is currently the home secretary, basically the guy who makes decisions about internal affairs, before that i think he used to be education secretary.
he's basically a blind (litterally) maniac who really is on a power trip at the moment, backed by tony blair.
the labour government is in something of a dissarray, they've been practically split apart, and tony blair has come very very close (exactly 4 votes) from a vote of no confidence being taken against him.

in a nutshell, labour is all over the place, returning to it's old tradition of being a completly fucked up party who can't run the country. tony is americas lacky, and is a practical dictator at home, wanting to abolish the monarchy and generally make everything hip and swinging with his middle aged labour thinking

yes, thats a bit biased due to the fact i'm a tory, but most of it still stands.

Lebell · 03-15-2004, 01:42 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Strange Famous
(he is blind)

Oh.

I'm sorry, but being blind doesn't give you a pass on being an asshole.

stevie667 · 03-15-2004, 01:46 PM

it doesn't, he's just the only blind person i know of in the government, which would make him stand out if you ever see someone on the knews rambling about charging people lots of money with a guide dog.

03-15-2004, 08:10 AM	#1 (permalink)
The_Dunedan Junkie	How Govornments See Justice http://www.sundayherald.com/40592 We locked you up in jail for 25 years and you were innocent all along? That’ll be £80,000 please Blunkett charges miscarriage of justice victims ‘food and lodgings’ By Neil Mackay, Home Affairs Editor WHAT do you give someone who’s been proved innocent after spending the best part of their life behind bars, wrongfully convicted of a crime they didn’t commit? An apology, maybe? Counselling? Champagne? Compensation? Well, if you’re David Blunkett, the Labour Home Secretary, the choice is simple: you give them a big, fat bill for the cost of board and lodgings for the time they spent freeloading at Her Majesty’s Pleasure in British prisons. On Tuesday, Blunkett will fight in the Royal Courts of Justice in London for the right to charge victims of miscarriages of justice more than £3000 for every year they spent in jail while wrongly convicted. The logic is that the innocent man shouldn’t have been in prison eating free porridge and sleeping for nothing under regulation grey blankets. Blunkett’s fight has been described as “outrageous”, “morally repugnant” and the “sickest of sick jokes”, but his spokesmen in the Home Office say it’s a completely “reasonable course of action” as the innocent men and women would have spent the money anyway on food and lodgings if they weren’t in prison. The government deems the claw-back ‘Saved Living Expenses’. Paddy Hill was one of the Birmingham Six. He spent 16 years behind bars for the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings by the IRA. Hill now lives on a farm with his wife and children near Beith in Scotland. He has been charged £50,000 for living expenses by the Home Office. It wasn’t until two years ago that Hill was finally awarded £960,000 in compensation. However, during the years since his release, while waiting for the pay-out, the government had given him advances of around £300,000. When his compensation came through, the £300,000 was taken back along with interest on the interim payments charged at 23% – that cost him a further £70,000. “The whole system is absurd,” Hill said. “I’m so angry about what has happened to me. I try and tell people about being charged for bed and board in jail and they can’t believe it. “When I left prison I was given no training for freedom – no counselling or psychological preparation. Yet the guilty get that when they are released. To charge me for the food I ate and the cell I slept in is almost as big an injustice as fitting me up in the first place. “While I was in prison, my family lost their home, yet they get no compensation. But the state wants its money back. It’s like being kicked in the head when someone has beat you already. “I have to put up with this, yet there has not been one police officer convicted of fitting people up. The Home Office had no shortage of money to keep me in jail or to run a charade of a trial. “But they had enough money to frame me. Nevertheless, when it comes to paying out compensation for ruining my life they happily rip me to shreds.” Hill is not leading the legal action against the government – instead he has handed the baton to another high-profile victim of miscarriage of justice: Mike O’Brien. O’Brien spent 10 years in jail wrongly convicted of killing a Cardiff newsagent. His baby daughter died while he was in prison and he was charged £37,500 by the Home Office for his time behind bars. Hill said he cannot lead the legal fight as the Birmingham Six have fought every legal action together, but now three of them are over 70 and Hill believes it is too much to ask them to join him in taking on the government yet again. He said he was also worried about the compensation payments for the other members of the Birmingham Six being affected if they joined him in court against the government. “The establishment hate me and people like me as we proved them wrong,” he said. “They either want to ignore us or hurt us.” O’Brien took the Home Office to court last March and won, but Blunkett appealed the decision. On Tuesday, the rights and wrongs of the government policy will be decided at the Royal Courts. O’Brien said: “Morally, the position of the government is just outrageous. It shows total contempt for the victims of miscarriages of justice. It makes me livid. “I really believe if we win the appeal this week, the government is evil enough to take me to the House of Lords. They are trying to break us. I really think this is personal as far as the government is concerned. “A government really can’t get much worse than this. But I am confident that we will win as the law and morality are on our side.” Vincent Hickey, one of the Bridgewater Four who was wrongly convicted for killing a paperboy, was charged £60,000 for the 17 years he spent in jail. He said: “If I had known this I would have stayed on hunger-strike longer, that way I would have had a smaller bill.” John McManus, of the Scottish Miscarriage of Justice Organisation, said: “This is reprehensible. How can we call ourselves a democratic, civilised society when our government is acting like this? “The government seems intent on punishing innocent people. The state wants to be paid for making a mistake. It’s hard to believe someone actually thought this policy up. If you tell a child about this they will think it insane. “Only a sick mind could have invented this policy, yet the government is fighting to retain the right to act like this. It is cruelty with intent. They seem to want to punish people for having the audacity to be innocent.” The SNP’s shadow justice minister, Nicola Sturgeon, said: “This is outrageous. It is another assault by Blunkett on the rule of law and on civil liberties. These people didn’t chose to go to prison. They were wrongly convicted, and to charge them for it beggars belief.” The Home Office said an “independent assessor appointed by the Home Secretary takes into acccount the range of costs the prisoner might have incurred had they not been imprisoned”. The spokes man said the assessor was “right” to do this, adding: “Morally, this is reasonable and appropriate.” ‘I was a hostage, now they are billing me’ ROBERT Brown was just a 19-year-old from Glasgow when he was jailed for life for murdering a woman called Annie Walsh in Manchester in 1977. He served 25 years before he was finally freed in 2002, when the courts ruled him innocent of the crime. He is now facing a bill of around £80,000 for the living expenses he cost the state. For Brown, it is the final straw. An interim payment he was given pending his full compensation offer is exhausted; his mother recently died; his relationship with his girlfriend has fallen apart and he is facing eviction from his home following a mix-up over benefits. “I feel like ending my life,” he says. “I’ve tried to maintain my dignity, but the state has treated me with nothing but contempt – now they are asking me for money for my bed and board in jail. “I never contemplated suicide once while I was in prison, but it’s different on the outside. I have received no counselling or support. Society is treating me like something you’d wipe off the bottom of your shoes, but I’m an innocent man and a victim of a terrible injustice. “It’s horrific. I’ve been out of jail for 14 months and in that time the state has put me through a war of attrition that it never needed to conduct. I feel my life is disintegrating around me. “Making me pay for my bed and board is abhorrent. I was arrested, fitted up and held hostage for 25 years and now they are going to charge me for being kept as their prisoner against my will. “Can you think of a more disgusting way to abuse someone? I really feel that my heart is truly and finally broken.” Last edited by The_Dunedan; 03-15-2004 at 08:17 AM..

03-15-2004, 08:16 AM	#3 (permalink)
The_Dunedan Junkie	I apologize. Will edit. __________________ "I personally think that America's interests would be well served if after or at the time these clowns begin their revolting little hate crime the local police come in and cart them off on some trumped up charges or other. It is necessary in my opinion that America makes an example of them to the world." --Strange Famous, advocating the use of falsified charges in order to shut people up.

03-15-2004, 08:21 AM	#5 (permalink)
The_Dunedan Junkie	Can't seem to edit the subject. I apologize in advance to all decent British posters. Got really hacked off when I read this, because a proposal to do the same was recently floated here in the States, over in the People's Republic of California. Thankfully, it was defeated. __________________ "I personally think that America's interests would be well served if after or at the time these clowns begin their revolting little hate crime the local police come in and cart them off on some trumped up charges or other. It is necessary in my opinion that America makes an example of them to the world." --Strange Famous, advocating the use of falsified charges in order to shut people up.

03-15-2004, 08:40 AM	#7 (permalink)
Bill O'Rights will always be an Alyson Hanniganite Location: In the dust of the archives	Is this David Blunkett for real? __________________ "I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires." - Susan B. Anthony "Hedonism with rules isn't hedonism at all, it's the Republican party." - JumpinJesus It is indisputable that true beauty lies within...but a nice rack sure doesn't hurt.

03-15-2004, 11:02 AM	#9 (permalink)
Strange Famous follower of the child's crusade?	Just another example of the sickness and moral indecency of the British ruling class. Labour and the Tories are as bad as each other, in fact they compete with each other to come up with more ingenious ways to opress and disposess the British people. Blunkett is a criminal, he is more right wing than Tebit, and he should be sacked immediately, along with Blair the liar. __________________ "Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate, for all things are plain in the sight of Heaven. For nothing hidden will not become manifest, and nothing covered will remain without being uncovered." The Gospel of Thomas

03-15-2004, 08:14 AM	#2 (permalink)
stevie667 Too Awesome for Aardvarks Location: Angloland	STOP this is NOT the english sense of justice in anyway, i must make that clear. what you have here is the labour party, something completly different, but as we can see, inept as fuck.

03-15-2004, 08:18 AM	#4 (permalink)
stevie667 Too Awesome for Aardvarks Location: Angloland	well, i didn't require that, i just wanted to express my extreme anger at the labour party, but if that can be expressed even more, i'm all for it.

03-15-2004, 08:25 AM	#6 (permalink)
stevie667 Too Awesome for Aardvarks Location: Angloland	the problem is that it's going to go ahead in britain alot further before it gets kicked out, thanks to our all powerful and mighty wise leadership you just have to hate the labour party for things like this, bunch of inbred morons.

03-15-2004, 08:59 AM	#8 (permalink)
stevie667 Too Awesome for Aardvarks Location: Angloland	unfortunatly yes.

03-15-2004, 11:12 AM	#10 (permalink)
stevie667 Too Awesome for Aardvarks Location: Angloland	wow, dude, reality check here, it's 2004, not 1804. there is no british ruling class anymore, just ruling prats. and to be honest, it's labour who have been messing up, the tories arn't too bad anymore.

03-15-2004, 11:14 AM	#11 (permalink)
Lebell Cracking the Whip Location: Sexymama's arms...	I would have sworn that was something out of the "Onion" if I hadn't read it myself. Taking away a man's freedom and then charging him for the privilege?? "But we gave you this nice comfortable cell, complete with security system as well as 3 delicious meals a day, what do you mean, you won't pay for them even though you had no choice but to accept??" __________________ "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis The ONLY sponsors we have are YOU! Please Donate!

03-15-2004, 11:15 AM	#12 (permalink)
stevie667 Too Awesome for Aardvarks Location: Angloland	yup, thats the labour party for you 'ignoring the people, detaining the innocent, then charging you for it for over 5 years'

03-15-2004, 12:36 PM	#13 (permalink)
Strange Famous follower of the child's crusade?	The labour party didnt invent the criminal justice act, the poll tax, or attack Argentina for no good reason. Both parties of the ruling capitalist stand equally ashamed in the opinion of right minded working class people. The number of gross and disgusting acts of govenment committed by both parties is staggering, it just hurts more to come from Labour, because as we were surviving Thatcher we believed that they were supposed to be on our side. __________________ "Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate, for all things are plain in the sight of Heaven. For nothing hidden will not become manifest, and nothing covered will remain without being uncovered." The Gospel of Thomas

03-15-2004, 12:53 PM	#14 (permalink)
Bill O'Rights will always be an Alyson Hanniganite Location: In the dust of the archives	Will one of you Brit's tell me that this Blunkett guy is just trying to get attention, and not trying to push this as an actual agenda. Please... __________________ "I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires." - Susan B. Anthony "Hedonism with rules isn't hedonism at all, it's the Republican party." - JumpinJesus It is indisputable that true beauty lies within...but a nice rack sure doesn't hurt.

03-15-2004, 01:02 PM	#15 (permalink)
Charlatan Getting it. Super Moderator Location: Lion City	Who says there is no humour in politics... __________________ "My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars." - Old Man Luedecke

03-15-2004, 01:24 PM	#18 (permalink)
stevie667 Too Awesome for Aardvarks Location: Angloland	it doesn't really matter if the argentines have a moral right to them, internationally they are recognised as one of the queens realms, and therefor british property and soil. no-one cares what the argentines think, plain a simple. we own them so there. theres a difference between northern ireland and blunkets new regime of terror, gimme a couple of hours to find the specifics and links so i don't have to spend my night arguing about something i can prove within minutes.

03-15-2004, 01:35 PM	#19 (permalink)
Bill O'Rights will always be an Alyson Hanniganite Location: In the dust of the archives	OK guys, settle down. Argentina is a whole 'nother matter. Let's try to stay on topic, and not threadjack. That said, I have to confess to a complete ignorance of British politics. Yeah, yeah, I'm another arogant American. Just tell me how someone like this David Blunkett comes to get to a position of any kind of power to begin with. __________________ "I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires." - Susan B. Anthony "Hedonism with rules isn't hedonism at all, it's the Republican party." - JumpinJesus It is indisputable that true beauty lies within...but a nice rack sure doesn't hurt.

03-15-2004, 01:39 PM	#20 (permalink)
Strange Famous follower of the child's crusade?	For one thing, people are often afraid to criticise him for fear that they will look prejudiced for doing it. (he is blind) __________________ "Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate, for all things are plain in the sight of Heaven. For nothing hidden will not become manifest, and nothing covered will remain without being uncovered." The Gospel of Thomas

03-15-2004, 01:40 PM	#21 (permalink)
stevie667 Too Awesome for Aardvarks Location: Angloland	david blunket is currently the home secretary, basically the guy who makes decisions about internal affairs, before that i think he used to be education secretary. he's basically a blind (litterally) maniac who really is on a power trip at the moment, backed by tony blair. the labour government is in something of a dissarray, they've been practically split apart, and tony blair has come very very close (exactly 4 votes) from a vote of no confidence being taken against him. in a nutshell, labour is all over the place, returning to it's old tradition of being a completly fucked up party who can't run the country. tony is americas lacky, and is a practical dictator at home, wanting to abolish the monarchy and generally make everything hip and swinging with his middle aged labour thinking yes, thats a bit biased due to the fact i'm a tory, but most of it still stands.

03-15-2004, 01:46 PM	#23 (permalink)
stevie667 Too Awesome for Aardvarks Location: Angloland	it doesn't, he's just the only blind person i know of in the government, which would make him stand out if you ever see someone on the knews rambling about charging people lots of money with a guide dog.