A Very Social Secretary

[Rebecca Loos]

Did anybody watch this last night? I was so disappointed by it. Now I am not the world's greatest Blunkett supporter, far from it, but I thought the mick-taking went too far and wasn't subtle enough - basically they took the piss out of every single aspect of his character, including his voice, his laugh, the lot. That went too far to be a witty satire on a misguided government minister I thought.

Also pity they did it before the Sally Anderson affair, it would have had much more "meat" to mock him with!

[Chico]

Well I saw it last week on More4. It tells you what society we have become - David Blunkett is disabled and as such cannot make the same judgements an able person could make hence why he is so easily exploited. We should not be laughing at him, we should be honouring him. His life story is so tragic and inspite of that he rose to become one of the most powerful people in this country. Yes he is flawed (throw the first stone anyone) but that does not mean he should be cannon fodder.

[Rebecca Loos]

Chico, I agree with you 50%. I think that some of the shots fired at him were indeed cheap and exploited his blindness.

However, you could also argue that up to 2 years ago, Blunkett had an easy ride because no one would dare to mock a disabeld person in our politically correct times. So it's good in some ways that people feel they can mock someone, even if he/she is disabled.

What I thought was silly in last night's program was Blunkett's voice and laugh made him sound retarded (which he is clearly not), that there was no point making him like a loser in bed, and finally that scene at the end with his tirade "think you can take a northern boy, sonny boy?" to the lawyer is a very stupid and pointless scene, does Blunkett really have a chip on his shoulder about being a little northern lad, mocked by the south? Doubt it.