Benedict Brogan on his blog quotes approvingly the disgraced Blunkett giving a speech to the assembled hordes of the Dead-Tree-Press at the What the Papers Say awards shindig. “Bloggers sometimes but rarely know what they are talking about, sometimes but rarely talk sense.” “Hear hear” says Brogan of the always sensible Daily Mail.

To get this into the proper perspective one should know that David Blunkett told the head of the Prison Service to call in the Army and “machine-gun” rioting inmates to regain control of a jail in 2002. Martin Narey, then director general, said the then Home Secretary told him he did not care about possible deaths during bids to retake Lincoln prison. This was at a time when the Daily Mail was lauding him as a great Home Secretary, but before he was exposed (by the Daily Mail) for fathering a son with another man’s wife, fiddling his expenses and fast-tracking for his mistress her nanny’s visa. All covered in detail on this blog…