09.12.2004
Private lives should be private
The main controversy centres on ‘nannygate’ - that is, the claim that the home secretary fast-tracked a residency visa application for Quinn’s Filipino nanny, Leoncia ‘Luz’ Casalme (who has since signed a £30,000 deal with the Daily Mail), so that she could go on holiday with the young child Blunkett believes to be his. The charge, if true, would definitely constitute an abuse of ministerial privileges.
Blunkett, as we all know, refutes all such allegations, especially the subsequent stories - or ‘exclusives’, if you prefer - that he held a sudden meeting with officials from the immigration and nationality department inquiring into the current status of Casalme’s application and that - hey presto - only three days later the visa came through, granting Quinn’s nanny indefinite leave to remain in Britain.
Supporters of the home secretary maintain that it was an “over-zealous” home office official who was responsible for fast-tracking the visa application, not Blunkett himself. However, Blunkett has admitted that, he gave his now most emphatically ex-lover Quinn a first-class rail warrant - intended only for an MP’s ‘official’ spouse - to the romantic idyll of Doncaster.
Sir Alan Budd, provost of Queen’s College, Oxford, and a former chief economic adviser to the treasury, is now investigating and is expected to report within two weeks. Expect exoneration. But to add spice to the proceedings, and no doubt increase tabloid circulation statistics, Quinn has written to Budd asking to give evidence. Predictably opportunistic, the Tories - or at least David Davis and Theresa May - have demanded that Blunkett should resign if the distinguished Budd judges that the home office, with or without Blunkett’s permission, did indeed fast-track Casalme’s visa application.
Fair minded people cannot but - for once - have some sympathy with Blunkett: at least over his opinion that the media interest in this affair has involved little more than “tittle tattle”. However, for communists, the whole business does raise some serious political points. Centrally, the oppressive and reactionary nature of the state’s controls and policing of immigration laws, which sees the bureaucracy decide who can and cannot come into the country.
In this instance, Casalme could just as easily have waited years before being granted a visa, or even refused entry point-blank. If so, she might well have ventured the idea of coming into the UK illegally, like so many other Casalmes of the world have done in the past and will continue to do so in the future.
So, yes, in that sense, whether Blunkett or some home office eager-beaver did or did not fast-track the nanny’s application, what we witness here is indeed an abusive act of state-governmental power, as loudly asserted by David Davis and Theresa May. However, unlike the Tories, we insist that the abuse lies precisely in the fact that the state imposes controls on the movement of people at all, not in their (alleged) selective application. Kimberley Quinn’s nanny, like anyone else, should be free to come and go as he or she pleases.
Meanwhile, as the press continues to speculate about Blunkett’s private life, he continues to push and promote all manner of different draconian pieces of legislation. One of Blunkett’s personal crusades is for the introduction of ID or ‘entitlement’ cards, as part of the ‘war against terror’ and organised crime - when we know that the principal victims of such a scheme would be the 200,000 or so asylum-seekers currently residing in this country, who will have to suffer more state harassment.
What is more, you will have to fork out £35 for your unwanted ID card (or £77 if it is combined with a passport). You will be fined £2,500 for failing to register, which will be repeated on each occasion a notice to register is ignored. There will also be a £1,000 fine for failing to renew your card on time. If that was not enough, every time you move house you must inform the state, which will enter all your details into a central database, thus building up a handy profile of your movements and activities. Communists vigorously oppose the introduction of any such national ID scheme, irrespective of whether it pretends to be ‘voluntary’ or not.
On December 7 - the very day Blunkett was in court arguing with Quinn over access rights - there was the second reading of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill, part of which will include the outlawing of “incitement to religious hatred”. The bill extends the offence of incitement to racial hatred, as laid down under the Public Order Act 1988, to religious hatred, so all faith ‘communities’ - specifically muslims, of course - are covered.
Currently, sikhs and jews are defined as ‘ethnic groups’, so are already covered under present race relation laws. Those who want such a change in the law have argued that muslims deserve the same protection as other groups and hope or imagine that the Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill will give them parity under the law.
However, the introduction of ‘anti-religious hatred’ laws should be opposed. Not that we are in favour of whipping up bigotry against any religious group, or that we think discrimination directed against muslims or sikhs is okay - quite the opposite.
The democratic rights of individuals to embrace any religion (or reject a religion) as they see fit must be defended. But communists oppose all measures which give the authorities the right to decide in matters of religion what can and cannot be said, or to adjudicate as to what is ‘correct’ or not. This is why we want to finally ditch the crazy and still existent blasphemy law, which accords the christian cult a privileged status - theoretically banning anything which might give all or any offence to believers in christ, their man-god. In this same backward spirit, Monty Python’s The life of Brian was banned by some local government authorities such as Torbay.
Frankly the last thing we need now is a situation in which such an approach is extended to include just about every religious faith or belief-system you can think of (moonies, scientologists, pagans, UFOlogists, jedis, etc). This could lead to a nightmare scenario, not least with judges making up the law, which turns the democratic right to freely think and criticise into nothing but an empty husk. But this is precisely the direction which the Serious Organised and Police Bill would lead us.
After all, to a devout jew, what could be more hateful than christianity’s claims that Jesus was the son of god? And to a devout christian, what could be more offensive than islam’s claims that Jesus was only another prophet? And what could be more despicable for all of them than claims by atheists that there are no gods, super-natural, or transcendental forces at all?
For a more concrete example of the deleterious effects of such ‘incitement to religious hatred’ legislation you have to look no further than some of the states in Australia, which already have such laws. Notoriously, we have Victoria’s Racial and Religious Tolerance Act of 2001, which saw the Islamic Council of Victoria (ICV) lodge a complaint before a legal tribunal against two christian pastors, Danny Nalliah and Daniel Scot, accusing them of publicly “vilifying” islam at a seminar held on March 2002.
The two, both of whom have first-hand experience of living under sharia law in Pakistan, discussed for a mainly christian audience matters relating to the Koran, islamic teachings and culture. The ICV asked three muslims to attend the seminar and after they reported back promptly lodged a complaint against the pastors.
Nalliah and Scot were formally charged with inciting “hatred against, serious contempt for, or revulsion or severe ridicule” of islam. The case has dragged on for more than two years, and is still awaiting a judge’s final decision (pagans have also taken action under the law against christians who have been publicly critical of witchcraft).
Communists, on the other hand, stand for free speech and extreme democracy in all spheres of society - hence our opposition to immigration controls, ID cards, the new crime bill and whatever else David Blunkett and co may have up their sleeve.
It is this that concerns us, not the details of his private relationships.