The Rochdale Herald can exclusively confirm that David Blunkett is still blind. Mr Blunkett confirmed the findings of his most recent eye sight test earlier today.

A spokesman told us, “Earlier today Mr Blunkett used the ‘Cummings method’ to confirm he’s still blind. Rather than making an appointment with the doctor I gave him the keys to my car. He managed to join the M1 and almost immediately caused a multiple car pile up. Thankfully nobody was injured. We can officially confirm that Mr Blunkett is still blind.”

A witness, Bill Board told us, “I saw Blunkett get in the car. He waited whilst his friend got into the passenger seat. They put crash helmets on and proceeded to drive away. They clipped 4 kerbs, crashed into 2 cars and nearly took an electric milk float out before they’d even got off the estate.”

Another witness told us, “I saw David heading down the road and called the police. They were pretty quick, but must have let him go.”

South Yorkshire Police Constable Stan Still told us, “We followed Mr Blunkett for 20 miles. In that time he nearly ran several people over and spent the last 4 miles driving on the pavement. We tried to alert him to our presence bet he couldn’t see the blue lights. Ordinarily, we’d have arrested him at the scene but he was testing his eye sight so we’ve let him go.”

It’s alleged Mr Blunkett will attempt to fly a helicopter during next years eye examination.

Fact checked by Snopes; Plagiarised by Andrew Neil; Nancy Sinatra's favourite Rochdale satirist; sued by Chris Froome and winner of the 1922 Nobel Prize for Chemistry.* *Not all of these necessarily true.