David Blunkett

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OK so David Blunkett has stepped down from his post as work+ pensions secretary (I think). This is the third time he has had to step down.

So what 'did' you think of him?

i can't say, as the swear word filter would make my post incomprehensible...

i may well have a party to celebrate the nasty, fascist pig's demise, though.

i was actually there when he was "attacked" at the NUT conference in 1996. it was blown out of all porportion, as if that's going to surprise anyone.

(it was the second time, but who's counting - HE'S GONE!! ! yay!)

WOOHOO!! !! Now when's Bliar going???

Thats the question, Dunc, that's the killer question!! !

I am pleased Blunkett has gone, but we need to stay vigilant because Blair still intends to push through his Welfare "Reform" policies whether Blunkett is there or not, unfortunately. If he succeeds, it could have disasterous consequences for those of us on Incapacity Benefit.

All I can say is the man had a lack of vision ..... fnar fnar...

I wonder how his disability may have been a factor in his demise. He's blind, but I'm sure most people know that. So, he'd have to rely on information being relayed to him verbally, or by braille. Perhaps certain things that are obvious to the rest of us, would get lost in translation. Maybe he'd not benefit from some of the non-verbal body language that is part of most inter-human communication.

Of course, that's not an excuse for someone in government, and I particularly dislike Blair and all his cronies, but nonetheless it should be considered.

Im not sad to see him go. However i do feel the media has been a little harsh on him.

Ok, so what did he do this time?

I wouldn't be too celebratory about his demise though; there's plenty more where he came from.

How can a government elected by 37% be a majority?

Beats me. I favour proportional representation. Unfortunately the 'first past the post' system we use for local and national elections (not european ones, which already uses PR) tend to distort and magnify different shares of the vote, so a small percentage change can lead to a massive swing in the number of electoral seats each party wins. If we had had PR we might have avoided some of the 18 years of damage wreaked by the Tories in the eighties/nineties.

The electoral system favours Labour ridiculously. Mathematically Labour could win on as little as 35% of the vote whereas nothing below 40% will do for the Tories. However i view the whole system as a ridiculous mockery of democracy, that should be replaced by some form of Proportional representation, my personal preference being one similar to the German system.

Apparently, in the last election, it took twice the number of people (97,000??) to elect a Lib Dem MP compared to a Labour MP (42,000??). As a Lib Dem, I am absolutely furious, but the whole system is a mockery of democracy anyway

Actually its more biased than that. If you divide the number of Labour votes by seats you get 26,855 votes per MP. If you do the same sum with the Conservatives you get 44,359 and if you do that with the Lib Dems you get 96,542