Good old Blunkett's been caught out yet again with his swashbuckling style of ministerial sleaze. Another month, another broken rule, another shifty Labour minister becomes unstuck. So Blair wades in to save Blunkett's skin yet again, and starts by trying to dismiss the criticism as "tittle tattle". When this doesn't stick and the pressure mounts he uses his favourite trick, blame someone else. Step forward one Gus O'Donnell. He's going write a "report" on whether Blunkett breached ministerial code by accepting a directorship at a DNA testing company (obviously something very close to his heart…or maybe a bit lower). Despite Blunkett admitted that he breached the code, Blair is going ahead with his report anyway.<\/p>\n
So when the report exonerates Blunkett – and I'd be gobsmacked if it didn't – Blair can lean on this and avoid having to make any personal judgement whatsoever. "The report finds Blunkett entirely innocent and so the matter is now closed", he'll bark. Anyone bet a fiver?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Good old Blunkett's been caught out yet again with his swashbuckling style of ministerial sleaze. Another month, another broken rule, another shifty Labour minister becomes unstuck. So Blair wades in to save Blunkett's skin yet again, and starts by trying to dismiss the criticism as "tittle tattle". When this doesn't stick and the pressure mounts […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.innerhippy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.innerhippy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.innerhippy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.innerhippy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.innerhippy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.innerhippy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":416,"href":"https:\/\/blog.innerhippy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23\/revisions\/416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.innerhippy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.innerhippy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.innerhippy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}