David

Oh dear, blind Sheffield MP and former Home Secretary, David Blunkett, was attacked by a cow at the weekend while walking near his publicly funded quaint Derbyshire cottage on the Chatsworth estate - some twenty miles from his Brightside constituency. This self-proclaimed man of the people has of course suffered at the hooves of cows before - notably the American heiress Kimberley Qunn who bore Mr Blunkett a son - William - in spite of her protestations that the kid was her husband's spawn. That publicity brought the shutters down on Blunkett's promising ministerial career. Who knows - instead of Gordon we might have had David.

I have met Mr Blunkett on several occasions - mostly because I taught his three older sons - all born in wedlock during his marriage to Ruth. The three lads were very nice. Alistair was the oldest. I remember Blunkett sending me a letter on House of Commons notepaper declaring that Alistair could get a C grade in English. In the event he got a D grade. I wondered at the time - what can a blind man know about the appearance of words on paper and why was he so sure that Alistair could make a C grade? His wife was much more realistic about the lad's literacy skills.

The middle boy, Hughie, was the brightest of the three and had a certain intellectual edge to him that he must have inherited from his father. Many Sheffield people despise what Blunkett became and how he left his roots behind but I have always had a sneaky admiration for him. To become leader of a city council at a very young age, then an MP, then a minister and Home Secretary - such achievements were testament to his self-belief, his hard work and his refusal to let a major disabilty stand in his way. It's hard to knock somebody like that...unless of course you're a cow!