Former British Home Secretary: "Machine gun the rioters."

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David Blunkett, who was born blind, was Britain's Education Secretary between 1997 and 2001 and the Home Secretary between 2001 and 2004.



HMP Lincoln

Former Home Secretary David Blunkett told the head of the Prison Service to "machine gun" rioting inmates at a jail, it has been claimed.

Martin Narey, then service director-general, alleged the "hysterical" MP said he did not care about loss of life after prisoners took over Lincoln jail in 2002.

Mr Blunkett denied the account of the telephone conversation.

Writing in The Times, Mr Narey said he had told Mr Blunkett he would not rush ordering staff back into the jail, if it put lives at risk.

Mr Narey went on: "He shrieked at me that he didn't care about lives, told me to call in the Army and 'machine gun' the prisoners and - still shrieking - again ordered me to take the prison back immediately.

"I refused. David hung up."

Mr Narey acknowledged that the comments were not meant literally, saying "he surely cannot have intended us to take (them) seriously".

But he said the incident demonstrated how, when Mr Blunkett was under pressure, "he could be almost impossible to work with".

"I found him always unpredictable and inclined to rush to a decision sometimes on the basis of what had been read to him that morning from the tabloid press," Mr Narey added.

Mr Narey's article followed Mr Blunkett's newly-published diaries, in which he accuses the then Director-General of dithering over the riot.

A spokesman for Mr Blunkett told the paper: "Everything to do with the Lincoln riot is in the diary. The diary records precisely what happened.

"He did order the retaking of the prison. He did not say anything about machine guns. Quite apart from anything else they do not carry machine guns in the Prison Service."

news.sky.com