Daily Mail comment

Last updated at 12:15 16 December 2004


Whatever the rights and wrongs (and all parties in this tragedy have been guilty of terrible misjudgments and cruelties) the fact is, in a Cabinet of pygmies Mr Blunkett - a fundamentally decent man - was a giant.

He never ducked the big issues, always striving for example to bring sanity to the asylum crisis (despite judicial obstruction).

Now he has gone, attention will inevitably focus on the media's role.

The Mail didn't break the original story of his affair.

Nor, unlike some newspapers, have we called for Mr Blunkett's resignation.

We did, however, expose how visas were fasttracked. No paper worthy of the name could have withheld the information.

In the end, of course, his downfall was not brought about by the Press, but by Sir Alan Budd's discovery that the Home Office was involved in doing favours for Mrs Quinn's nanny.

It is Mr Blunkett's misfortune that when he needed support, he was isolated because of caustic comments about Cabinet colleagues in his biography.

What a comment on politics that it isn't Mr Blunkett's impregnation of a married woman that aroused their ire, but his all too accurate remarks about their capabilities.

Now he returns to the backbenches. We sincerely hope that after a period of reassessment he will return to office.

For whatever his errors, this is a remarkable man, with a huge contribution to make. Government is the poorer without him.

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