"And I believe and have always believed, that entitlement comes from contributing into a service and then being able to draw freely on it. A something for something regime. And that's why we need to protect it."

That's extraordinary. Blunkett seems to have forgotten a very important prinicple: a tax is not a payment for a service.

He presumably must have known this at some point; after all, he was Education Secretary. I guess he must have been very busy fighting terrorism, and it's just slipped his mind. Perhaps Tony could remind him....