Blunkett gone

UK Home Secretary David Blunkett has resigned.

His then partner, a right-wing magazine publisher, wanted to take her nanny on various foreign trips and needed UK residence expediting. Faced with the Kafkaesque security apparatus he had created, Blunkett took a shortcut and had his office email various immigration functionaries to speed things along.

Unfortunately, there is a limitless pile of hard-right "New Labour" clones to take his place. The similarly bearded Charles Clarke has been appointed Home Secretary.

It interests me how people like Blunkett wind up in a nominally left of centre party. You would have thought that an extreme social conservative would, like his erstwhile partner, have been more at home in the Tories. I suppose it must be a tribal thing - being from a working class north of England background, joining Labour would be non-voluntary, like supporting the local football team.