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David Blunket Sanctioned The Machine Gunning Of Rioting Prisoners

John Bowden | 27.10.2006 10:52 | Repression | Social Struggles | London | Sheffield | World

The true mentality of former Home Secretary David Blunket and his political supporters within the government was chillingly revealed in October of this year with the revelation that he had ordered an ex-Director General of the prison system to sanction the machine gunning of rioting prisoners at Lincoln jail four years ago.

Former Director General Martin Narey and a prison governor claimed that during an uprising at Lincoln jail in 2002 during which prisoners held part of the jail over night, Blunket contacted Narey and ordered him to call in the army and massacre the rioters. Blunket is said to have “shrieked” down the telephone to Narey that he did not care about the loss of life when re-taking the jail and promised Narey absolute political cover for dealing with the uprising. Narey refused Blunket's order and was accused by him of “dithering”, while describing his own behavior as “bold and decisive”.

The prisoners who Blunket wanted slaughtered Attica-style were for the most part short term petty offenders or untried prisoners who had revolted over intolerable conditions at Lincoln. In Blunket's twisted view however, they had forfeited the right to life by challenging the system and should have been eradicated as a consequence.

Blunket's credentials as a racist and extreme right winger are well established, but his response to the Lincoln jail uprising reveal the true extent of his fascist mentality and show just how far he was prepared to pursue state repression in the interests of the system. The critical point, however, is that Blunket wasn't some maverick right-wing lunatic whose opinion of how the rioting prisoners at Lincoln should be dealt with was an isolated one in the Home Office. The truth is that Blunket's reactionary, brutish views regarding prisoners are sentiments representative of a whole mindset within the Home Office and absolutely consistent with the treatment of “unmanageable” prisoners for years. Blunket, always fearful of another protracted Strangeways-like revolt whilst Home Secretary was simply giving verbal expression to a view of how such revolts should be put down in future that is keenly subscribed to by a whole core element within the Home Office and prison officer movement and a view absolutely central to the New Labour project of viciously crushing resistance and defiance amongst the poor and oppressed wherever it manifests itself.

John Bowden

Comments

Hide the following 6 comments

Narey is a hypocrite

27.10.2006 14:15

Blunkett clearly is, and always was, a sadistic neo-fascist. But the hidden villain of this place is the so-called whistle-blower. At the time Blunkett said his stuff, Martin Narey never said a fucking word. Now Narey has left the Prison Service, acts like a born-again liberal, is employed as head of Barnados (presumably on a fat salary) and goes around saying too many people are locked up, the system treats them badly and there should be a public inquiry into the deaths of Joseph Scholes and other children. But at the time Blunkett wanted the Lincoln protesters murdered, and the families of Joseph and the other boys were being told the system HAD killed their kids, his silence was deafening.

Nicki


At least...

27.10.2006 16:16

he had the sense to try and delegate this task. One of his saner ideas.

20:20


The Diaries

27.10.2006 17:11

The more I read politicians' memoirs, the more I have to conclude that them being in the loop in any sprawling conspiracies is just absurd: they are fucking idiots.

Focus Group


not quite

27.10.2006 21:48

"Sanctioning" implies something that actually happened and was approved of by what ever authority. I'm not aware of prisoners at that place being machine gunned or that its the case that it was ever likely.

So Blunkett got pissed off and was unreasonable and exaggerrated in what he said. That's not at all the same thing as "sanctioning" a massacre. Don't write sillyness here please.

Cal


Quite!

29.10.2006 20:32

Sanction means "authoritative permission or approval". Since permission is usually given before something happens it follows that the thing itself doesn't have to happen to be sanctioned first. It is entirely accurate to say something was sanctioned (given permission) without it ever happening.

To claim Blunkett simply "got pissed off and was unreasonable and exaggerrated in what he said" is denial of the fact that he was Home Secretary and the highest authority in dealing with the situation. Had Narey been of similar mind to Blunkett then the army would have been called in and prisoner protesters may well have been massacred.

There is no sillyness in the article but there is sillyness - or at least denial - about the extent of just how right wing our current government is.

steve


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