Blunkett Resigns

Usually when a political scandal breaks out, I pay attention to what's happening. Most of the time they're over things that don't really affect me, like Kilroy-Silk being forced to resign his party's Whip, one of the Tories having an affair with a journalist, and so on. It was the same when I first heard that David Blunkett, MP from Sheffield and Home Secretary, was in the news for having a three year affair. I could have cared less who he was sleeping with as long as he was doing his job.

But when the news hit that he had pushed through his mistress's nanny's visa application as a favour (allegedly anyway, the inquiry has not yet begun), I was infuriated. After moving to the UK, my two oldest children and I were given temporary visas as the step-children and wife of a British citizen. Then I had to wait for a whole year before I could stop sweating and worrying that my family would be split up if our final permanent residency visas weren't approved. Obviously they were, but it was still a very tense time.

The nanny in this case didn't have to wait. Reports are that Blunkett was irritated/infuriated at the idea his mistress's nanny would have to wait that long, so the visa was pushed through in a big hurry! What do I mean by a big hurry? Nineteen days. The BBC has a timeline on their website, which you can look at yourself here.

Next year I am hoping to apply for British citizenship. My reasons why will take up a lot of space, so I'll leave it until another day. I'm sure it will take a lot longer than 19 days for me to either have my application approved or denied. Like the cliche says, it's not what you know but who you know!