Comments on: David Blunkett – both evil AND stupid

By: Seb

Seb — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 19:09:57 +0000

Oh yeah. Ah well.

By: Tom

Tom — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 17:32:29 +0000

Seb, Blunkett claims that he got this ‘intelligence’ after 9/11, referring to November 11th that year – exactly the time that this particular bit of Snopes-fodder was doing the rounds (again).

By: Seb

Seb — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 11:20:29 +0000

Hi Chris :)

…I�m now fucking terrified, with the revelation that the Home Secretary took action over security precautions … after he heard a �friend of a friend�s� retelling of a famous urban legend.

But what he’s saying must almost certainly be a lie, because it’s a well-known urban legend out of which the 9/11 versions grew *after* the event.

The most charitable interpretations are either that he did have intelligence that 9/11 would happen from another source that he can’t give, or that he’s stupid and confused about the facts and the order that he heard the urban legend in. The less charitable one is that he knows it’s a complete lie and he’s just using it to say… what? …I have no idea.

By: Alex

Alex — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 10:23:58 +0000

The man is evidently completely insane. It should also worry us that he thinks Al-Jazeera – a satellite channel based in Qatar – has a transmitter in Baghdad.

I think that, when it all comes out in the wash, we’ll hear a lot of horrors about his impact on the Home Office.

By: LilyW

LilyW — Sat, 21 Oct 2006 10:07:39 +0000

If there’s a silver lining in all this, it’s that we have some really decent public officials unwilling to compromise the rule of law (eg Narey). There must be at least something going right in the organisational culture of British public servants.

I like what Chris is saying. I think he’s asking us to consider Blunkett’s behaviour as part of a culture (sofa government) rather that as individual aberration (post Kimberley wobbles).

By: M

Fri, 20 Oct 2006 19:42:59 +0000

Maybe machine-gunning prisoners was an idea to solve the prison over-crowding problem.

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 21:55:07 +0000

I think that that urban legend has been doing the rounds for some time before September 11th. From Snopes:

In 2000, a specific version of this legend attached itself to the Trafford Centre in the U.K., a famous shopping location. According to that tale, a woman who helped a young man pay for his meal at Burger King was rewarded with the advice to avoid that shopping center during the month of March. That bit of advice was delivered in a light Irish accent.

By: Phil

Phil — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 20:01:03 +0000

Be fair, it was a new urban legend at the time. On the other hand, most people seem to have seen through it fairly quickly. A quick google finds this forum post dated 18/10/2001:

Yesterday I was on the Underground travelling on the Northern line. An
Arab looking man got off the train and I noticed that he had left his bag
behind. I grabbed the bag and ran after him, caught up with him at the top of
the escalator and handed him back his bag. He was extremely grateful to me and
reached into his bag which I noticed contained bundles of banknotes. He offered
me a reward, but I refused. So he looked round, made sure nobody was looking
and whispered to me: “I can never repay your kindness Sir, but I will try to
with a word of advice for you. Stay away from Aberdeen Steak Houses”.

I was terrified. “Is there going to be an attack?” I whispered.

“No Sir”, he whispered back. “I went there yesterday evening – the food
was shit and the dessert selection extremely limited”.

By: view from the solent

view from the solent — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 15:20:59 +0000

“But it makes me wonder – if someone so viciously amoral yet at the same time mind-bogglingly gullible managed to get to one of the great offices of state, what does it say about the qualities of the current cabinet?”

Nothing new.