The Blunkett Tapes: My Life in the Bear Pit

As happens so often I don't get films that are oscar winners, but enjoy critically panned ones. The same is true often for books. I enjoyed the way David Blunkett used original diaries and then commented on them. I did think they are too long, but nevertheless for an element of selective insight into this government it was quite enjoyable.

rebarbative nonsense (3/5 people found this helpful)

A diary is meant to be something of an exploration into a well-known persons private thoughts, aspirations and fears. moreover, their meant to be self aware and self critical. Blunkett, however, neglects these points stunningly. What one is left with is a chunky tome of conceited drivel. [...]. self-awareness - awareness of ones own faillings - is key to any stimulating diary. [...]. I must confess that i only got one hundred pages through the Blunkett tapes, reading the other pages in a desultory fashion. The book is sickeningly bad! the true low-point comes when he attends a convivial lunch with the dastardly Ruper Murdoch - makes your flesh crawl!

Boring , tedious (7/9 people found this helpful)

God - how this book goes on through endless tedious pages of self -justification! There should be a silver star for anybody who believes what is ghost-written and a gold star for anyone who finishes this boring tome. Complete waste of time - if someone gave you this as a Christmas present you will certainly know that you have upset them! It just shows that lack of ( literary) ability is no bar to the higher branches of government.

In the land of the short-sighted the blind politician is king... (10/15 people found this helpful)

Once upon a time, if a working class lad REALLY wanted to get on in life, he grafted his way into a good grammar school, became an apprentice or maybe even hustled his way into a career in the City or Fleet Street (via the mail room of course). Oh how times of changed...

Today, an arriviste working class lad has another option: become a second rate politican. In fact, all those 'yoots' out there dreaming of getting paid 'large' should forget about football, hip-hop or tabloid exposure as the route one to fame and fortune and follow Blunkett's guide to making it. Women, power, big guns, dangerous dogs (well, a Labrador-cross actually) - Blunkett's done it all and thus should have nuff respec' on road... He's well and truly a 'soldier,' you get me?

In all seriousness, unless you count trousering hundreds of thousands of pounds for producing reams of sleep inducing tosh (aside from his other 'achievements') Blunkett and his literary effort are no example to set to the legion of British youths who lack jobs, prospects and future. The man should be ashamed of himself, having sold out his class credentials and turned his back on millions of people that are in desperate need for genuine working class heroes.

My advice to any potential reader/buyer: fast-forward past The Blunkett Tapes, pause for thought, then erase this man from your memory...

A disgrace...with an advance... (14/20 people found this helpful)

& BBC licence payers' money & some tabloid rights too...

Disgraced, twice-sacked MP David Blunkett was somehow given hundreds of thousands of pounds to write this unriveting autobiography, amusingly in the pay of the Murdoch press, he serialised this book in the Daily Mail - odd behaviour for someone who wanted privacy a few years ago and griped about the media. & why should those who pay the BBC's licence fee pay for an extended advert (serialisation) on Radio 4 - it's not like any copies were sold as a result!

The MP formerly known as the Socialist Front of South Yorkshire turned out in power to be as much a class traitor as colleague like John Prescott and John Reid - not that this book will tell you that. Blunkett rewrites history from his skewed perspective, perhaps as a response to the amusing Channel Four drama that starred Bernard Hill and was probably immensely accurate?

This book charts the rise, fall, reinstatement, and fall of David Blunkett - a hardcore socialist from the Thatcher era who was perverted by the New Labour project and having actual power. A man who still hasn't stated why he ordered tanks into UK airports a few years ago. A man who apparently thought protesting prisoners should be taken out with machine guns. A man who didn't see any problem with having sexual relations with a rich, right-wing American publisher. A man who got sacked twice for dubious behaviour, despite lecturing others on morality...how odd that so many New Labour souls were leftist in their youth (Patricia Hewitt, Reid, Blunkett, Straw, Prescott) and are such sell outs when in middle age and power. They make the Tories look good.

This book is a disgrace, almost as distasteful as the Murdoch-published tome by OJ Simpson - why do disgraced and useless individuals get a publishing deal and profit from their bad behaviour? `The Blunkett Tapes', if it wasn't so boringly ghost-edited, does have one over-riding quality: it's a brilliant work of fiction.

The Blunkett Tapes: My Life in the Bear Pit

David Blunkett

Reader Reviews:

Quite entertaining (2/2 people found this helpful)

rebarbative nonsense (3/5 people found this helpful)

Boring , tedious (7/9 people found this helpful)

In the land of the short-sighted the blind politician is king... (10/15 people found this helpful)

A disgrace...with an advance... (14/20 people found this helpful)

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