David Blunket said yesterday that he wished people would stop pretending that everything government do is against the people or somehow oppressive. Mr Blunket is forgetting the party that he works for grew out of reactions to such oppression. The Blair, Brown & Mandelson troika may have set a path for the party which has taken it well away from its roots, but in becoming such supporters of money and the monied classes New Labour has for many people become oppressive.

We Brits see the war in Iraq as oppressive, as an act of empire, and we are ashamed of being part of it. We see the Government making things harder and harder for those on social security whilst failing to keep now old promises to close tax loopholes for the super-rich. We see Mr Blunket, as home secretary, having overseen an increase in closed circuit television cameras to the point where we are the most surveyed people on earth whilst we go about our daily lives. It seems almost every time Mr Blunket opens his mouth it is done to judge reaction to yet another whittling-away of human rights.

I’m sorry Mr Blunket but you are authoritarian and oppressive. Mr Blair, your boss, is so full of his own righteousness that to control and coerce has become first nature to him - just look at the way Ken Livingstone was treated - and I am afraid this has rubbed off. Labour can best be described as a narcissistic party, a party lured by money and fame, a party that cares all for image and nothing for substance. Narcissists are control freaks by nature, Mr Blunket, and everything you do has more than a faint whiff of being against the people or somehow oppressive. That’s why your latest squeeze on human rights will win you no friends.