In employing home office staff in the stalking and bullying of Ms Quinn, in fiddling his travel expenses, in interfering in the nanny’s visa application, in lying to the press and to the house of commons and to claimimg that although his disability did not debar him from holding the most important security responsibility in the government it nevertheless somehow automatically excused all his thieving, cheating, lying and bullying and that all he had to do with wrongly obtained monies was to pay them back. Blunkett is a common criminal and for Howard and the rest to bleat that he is an honourable man should make the entire nation puke. Blind or not the place for Blunkett is not in Her Majesty’s government but in Her Majesty’s prison and never mind pensions and sinecures in Europe. As for Sharon Blair she is a shameless grasping hypocrite, ghastly even by the standards of british QCs, but, like Blunkett, usefully emblematic of the vileness of NewLabour and all its members. If ever we fall into being spun so smoothly that we think they are doing something right we need only catch a glimpse of Sharon to bring us back to the awful reality of noses in the trough.

Thankfully, even though he should never have been in government in the first place, never mind twice his exit today underscores the value of Blair’s judgement, it hasn’t any.