The Consequences of Hazel Blears

A few weeks ago I warned that the Prime Minister might soon experience the wrath of a wounded chipmunk. I could never have predicted that Hazel Blears would resign from the Cabinet the day before an important set of elections. Her departure is entirely understandable, as she has experienced weeks of briefings against her. Over the last 12 hours Downing Street have been briefing the media that it was Blears who leaked the fact that Jacqui Smith would be leaving. Her patience snapped, and she told Brown that she'd had enough. Her resignation statement was notable for its lack of a single mention of Gordon Brown or the "achievements" of his government, which is the normal thing in these matters.

Readers know that I have a lot of time for Hazel Blears. I do think that she has been one of the more talented Cabinet Ministers, not that she has had a lot of competition for that accolade. But the most important thing is that many of her colleagues underestimate her.

I suspect that she may well make a resignation speech in the Commons next week. Could she really turn out to be Geoffrey Howe reincarnated? Analogies with the events of November 1990 can be overdone, but there's another one too - remember how Margaret Thatcher went to France in the middle of her troubles? Guess who's off to France at the weekend. John Biffen said her departure was like standing in front of a Paris underground map and watching all the lights go on.

I had a text from a Labour MP this morning which said: "Right, that's it. Enough". There are two things which will determine Gordon Brown's future: whether there are any more resignations, and the results of the County Council and European elections. I gather there is a letter of no confidence doing the rounds of Labour MPs today. The rumour is that 40 MPs have signed up to it already. It needs 72 before events take on a momentum of their own.

Let's scroll forward. If Brown goes - and I now think that is possible, if not probable - would the British public (and more importantly the media) stomach a second unelected Prime Minister in a row? Constitutionally, there is no reason the government is forced to hold an election in these circumstances, but politically it might be unavoidable. I don't think a new prime minister could get away with simply saying that the election will be in May 2010.

Are Geoff Hoon's Fingers Crossed When it Comes to CGT?

Hazel Blears has been singled out for not paying the capital gains tax on a London flat which was designated by the Fees Office as her second home. She has since paid a cheque for £13,000 to the HMRC, and made it clear that she recognises people’s anger. But what about her Cabinet colleague Geoff Hoon?

“Other Cabinet ministers, including Geoff Hoon, the Transport Secretary, were refusing to say whether they benefited similarly on properties that had been registered as second homes.”
Daily Telegraph 12th May 2009

“Yesterday it emerged that Nick Brown, the Chief Whip, was leading efforts to establish whether Geoff Hoon, the Transport Secretary, would have to repay thousands in capital gains tax. In 2006, Mr Hoon sold a property in Lambeth, south London, that between 1992 and 1997 he listed with the Commons as his second home. He was estimated to have made a profit of more than £300,000 on the sale of the home but has yet to say whether he paid tax.”
Daily Telegraph 14th May 2009

So has Cabinet Minister Geoff Hoon committed exactly the same misdemeanour as Hazel Blears, but hopes no-one will notice? By saying nothing, does he hope he will get away with it, and keep the cash? Has he paid CGT or not? If he has, why won’t he just say so?

Perhaps my my friends in Her Majesty's Press might like to quiz him on this. Hard.

Labour Women Kick Gordon Where It Hurts

The Chipmunk has got him by the nuts.

YouTube if you want to, but it is no substitute for knocking on doors or setting up a stall in the town centre,"Labour ministers have a collective responsibility for the government's lamentable failure to get our message across... Whatever the problems of the recession, the answer is not more government documents or big speeches

Kate Hoey kicks him in the balls.

I don't think many people talk to the PM about much...There is genuine confusion at the heart of our understanding of what he's trying to do, and he's been too quick to react when he's been criticised. The classic example was the YouTube appearance. He should never have done that...The problem is there's no real leader that we can coalesce around. I think if we do extremely badly in the European elections, there's no doubt about it people will start talking again... Our country economically is in such a terrible position, people are feeling 'how could things get worse?' It's not inconceivable that the Tories winning won't be greeted in the same way as if the Tories had been winning eight years ago... Would I be devastated?' No absolutely not.

And as if that wasn't bad enough, a Labour MP has apparently claimed the cost of a sauna on expenses. Wonder if that came with "extras"...

UPDATE: And the House of Commons is censoring details of expense claims.

UPDATE: The Mail on Sunday reports that Peter Mandelson had to calm an angry Gordon Brown after he lost his temper following TV interviews during the week and that Charles Clarke is calling for Ed Balls and Tom Watson to be sacked. it;s all kciking off, isn't it?

UPDATE: The Sunday Times reports that Labour Peer Baroness Uddin has claimed £100,000 for a flat which is empty. I never knew Peers had a second home allowance.

Hazel Blears on Blogging

Hazel Blears has caused quite a stir with her speech to the Hansard Society today on political engagement. She had a right old go at some blogs (Guido was not amused), although was characteristically nice about mine :). I have now got a full copy of her speech and if I get a moment before Desperate Housewives starts I might analyse it a little.

In the meantime click HERE to hear a discussion Hazel and I took part in with Eddie Mair on PM earlier. It's 49 minutes in and lasts about 5 minutes.

Quentin Letts Names Labour's Next Leader

From today's Daily Mail...

Later in the afternoon we heard briefly from Hazel Blears. She was perky, relaxed, animated, committed, intimate, all in the space of three minutes. Now I know many of you will read this and laugh like goats but if Labour really wants a new leader to dent Cameron, and if Alan Johnson truly isn't going to run, I reckon Labour could do worse than opt for the ginger chipmunk.

Hear, hear! The campaign starts here.

Decoding Mrs Blears

On the face of it, Dominic Lawson got a corker of an interview in yesterday's Independent on Sunday - with none other than that picture of permanent chirpiness, Hazel Blears. Jane Merrick thinks it spells big trouble for one G Brown. Let's give her words a light 'fisk'... (my comments in blue italics)...

If people are telling you, Dominic, that the Government is dysfunctional on the basis of their tiny perspective... well, there may well be concerns that people have got. I do think that making decisions quickly and executing them is essential to good government, and I've learnt that over the past 10 years."
An overt reference to Brown's dithering and lack of decision making ability?
Some people are saying that he's a decent man, we're sick of all these attacks, pulling someone apart, we don't like it. But then there are concerns from people: do they really know him? I think there is a responsibility to try and connect more with people... If you're not careful, people think you're out of touch and you don't understand them, and I think that's a very bad place for politicians to be."
Which is where, by implication, she thinks Gordon is.
When people think about Gordon, it might be that he's a bit serious and dour – but experienced... People make their political decisions not just rationally, but emotionally as well, and I think that our government needs to be more emotionally intelligent, and the bit that Cameron has got is a language...
So Gordon lacks emotional intelligence.
So I asked Blears: is it your position that Gordon Brown remains the only person who can lead the country at this time? "My position is that, at a time of economic global turbulence, I think that the Labour Party needs to get on with the job of trying to protect ordinary people as they go about their lives." You will observe that Blears chose not to answer a simple question with the simple answer: yes.
She's not the only one.
I genuinely think at the moment that if we have a big bloodbath in the Labour Party... I would rather we didn't get into that sort of internecine warfare. And if the party can find another way through and face its challenges, then I think it will be in a better place."
Those words raise many more questions than they answer.

This was a genuinely revealing interview with a politician who knows what has to be done but can't quite bring herself to say (or do) what we all know she is thinking. I remember all the speeches an interviews given by the likes of Michael Heseltine, Peter Walker, et al. They were pored over by Westminster Kremlinologists, who were searching for any sign of disloyalty to the leader. Yesterday it was Hazel Blears's turn. Today it will be David Miliband's.

Hazel Learns Alistair's Lesson

Money Week has ripped to shreads yesterday's advice by Hazel Blears that she would encourage people to buy a house in the current economic climate. Mind you, I feel for my little chipmunk (don't I always?). She was asked on Today if someone came to her and asked whether they should buy a house, what would her answer be? She replied: "Yes, go for it. It's your dream". While that answer created headlines, imagine what the headlines would have been if she had said the opposite. Alistair Darling could probably tell her.

Is This a Dagger I See Before Me?

On the last night (Wed 24th Sept) of the Labour Party conference in Manchester, when the hurly-burly’s done, when the battle’s lost and won, there is a special performance of Macbeth at the Salford Lowry Centre, performed by the National Youth Theatre, and that's where you'll find local MP Hazel Blears and her husband…

A play about plotting and assassination…a nice change from Labour Party conference.

'If it were done when ’t is done, then ’t were well It were done quickly.'

Another Chipmunk Fan Comes Out of the Closet

Finally, I have an ally in my fight to defend the nation's favourite chipmunk. This is Charles Moore, writing in this week's Spectator...

Hazel Blears ... is frequently denigrated in the Tory press. I met her for the first time last week, and found her delightful. She is kind and pretty, with the attractive energy that sometimes goes with being small. She is a proper Labour person (which so few of them are). She thinks about how to make life better for the poor and robustly opposes all alliances with any ideology — Islamism being the latest intruder in this country — which would make their life worse.

See, it's not just me. Maybe we should form a support group.

Breaking the Chipmunk Code

A Labour MP has rather gleefully passed to me a copy of a speech by Hazel Blears to the LGA last week, which went unreported. However, the final few paragraphs make for interesting reading, especially if you are a Westminster villager and enjoy doing a bit of codebreaking...

Let me finish with a final thought, and it’s about the importance of courage in politics.

I started by talking about Aneurin Bevan, and the NHS he created through force of will and political drive. The NHS is a great example of how today’s controversy is tomorrow’s commonplace. In 1948, the Conservatives voted against the NHS Bill in Parliament.

Yesterday, as I queued for the Westminster Abbey service to commemorate the NHS, standing behind me was my good friend David Cameron, leader of a party committed to the NHS.

In the 1960s my mentor and heroine Barbara Castle introduced seat belts and the breathalyser, and was called every name under the sun for restricting drivers’ freedom to drive whilst drunk and without a seat belt. No-one today wants to reverse that policy.

In my time in parliament, we’ve seen controversies such as Academy schools. Opposed tooth and nail at the time; now an increasingly accepted part of the local education system. Or the smoking ban. One year one, considered a great success.

My point is that every new political idea has its opponents – people who lack imagination, who fear change, who benefit from the status quo, or who want a quiet life. But those people fade away. They make little mark, and they are gone.
The people who drive forward human progress are the brave people, the people who are prepared to argue their case, who value courage and conviction above consensus. It is to them that we owe our liberty and our democracy. And I am convinced that in local government, the future belongs to the innovators, the visionaries, the trail-blazers and risk-takers.

It belongs to people with courage.

What can she mean? Is she talking in code? Some Labour MPs certainly think so...

Cabinet Meetings Outside London: PR Stunt or Good Idea?

Hazel Blears made a speech this morning in which she seriously suggested that the Cabinet should hold Cabinet meetings in town halls around the country. In a speech to the Social Market Foundation, she said...

Just imagine if the Cabinet meeting took place at the British Legion, Swindon, the Town Hall, Grimsby, or the Victoria Community Centre in Crewe. There is no good reason why not.

Imagine if the meeting was preceded by sessions with Cabinet ministers meeting local people, listening to their concerns, engaging in discussion, local schools getting involved. Interviews for local newspapers and community radio. And no doubt it would have a direct impact on the decisions made.

Last summer, I introduced the idea of cabinet ministers getting back to the floor by spending some time in workplaces, away from the media, doing a real job. I ended up at Tesco's for three days, stacking shelves and on the tills. I won't tell you which one of my colleagues got to be a train driver for the day.

This should become the norm.

Should it? In some ways she is just parroting what David Cameron has already done. The Shadow Cabinet regularly meets outside London. Sceptics will ask why she is suggesting this and say that it's just a PR stunt. Alternatively, she may be onto something. Discuss.

Labour Accused by DD on Political Advertising

Ben Brogan reports on a letter David Davis letter to the Cabinet Secretary Gus O'Donnell today, complaining about a series of Home Office adverts, supposedly aimed at businesses, which had subliminal party political messages to swing voters on immigration. Strangely, even though the target audience was supposedly businesspeople, the adverts only appeared in the Daily Mail, The Sun, The Mirror and The Star.

Bearing that in mind, read this quote from the Chipmunk (Hazel Blears, for the uninitiated) in tonight's London Evening Standard...

"We have to persuade people in Hastings, Basildon, Harlow and Luton we are firm but fair on immigration, that we understand their apprehensions..."

Now, which papers do many people in those towns read? You're ahead of me. Yet another example of taxpayers' money being used to help the Labour Party.

Hazel Blears in Plain English ... Or Not

In a speech today, Hazel Blears says she wants to involve people in decision-making and local politics. Could she perhaps get her government department to start talking in plain English. A classic example of New Labour jargon and reliance on quangos...

"Under the NEP, regional empowerment consortia are working with Regional Improvement and Efficiency Partnerships, and GOs in each region taking forward the NEP programme. We will set up a series of participatory budgeting "regional learning sets", and we are exploring how this could work alongside and through the NEP's regional consortia (made up of third sector groups working with communities and local authorities to help improve and facilitate empowerment) DCLG, Participatory Budgeting: a draft national strategy, 19 March 2008,p.20."

Blears Takes Action After 'Ginger' Bullying

Courtesy of Theo Spark

Dizzy has been ferreting around the chipmunk's leadership documents HERE. Apparently she thinks that civil liberties are "a middle class issue" and don't affect swing voters. Yeah, right.

Fisking the Chipmunk

My little chipmunk has certainly been busy of late. This morning I received this gushing message on Facebook from Lynne Wells of the Hazel Blears Campaign. I thought it worthy of a light fisk... Mind you, after the last time I fisked, I'm a little hesitant!

Hey all!

Oh dear, not a good start.

There's only a week or so until we'll all be receiving our ballot papers!

I can barely contain myself.

Remember if you're a member of a Trade Union or any other socialist society - you can vote for Hazel more than once!

Whatever happened to that old fashioned concept of one man one vote. Oh, sorry, I forgot. This is the Labour Party we're talking about.

A list of affiliated socialist societies can be found here.

How helpful. Move along now.

I thought you might be interested in this Times article which details Hazel's route to the Cabinet Table. As I am sure you are all aware, Hazel Blears has placed her working-class origins at the heart of her campaign.

Er, yes. Since she waxes lyrical about her bus driver brother at every opportunity...

Hazel was also on Newsnight last night debating alongside the other Deputy Leadership candidates.

Damn, missed it.

It was a very heated debate and Hazel gave a strong performance as usual.

Natch. But not as strong as Alan Johnson from what I hear...

She stressed her belief that the Deputy leader should be a campaigner in chief for the party, as well as a voice for the grassroots at cabinet level.

But not Deputy Prime Minister, eh?

View the debate here Don't forget to vote for Hazel in the online poll!!!

How could we?!

Best wishes,Lynne

I feel positively tired after that. Well done Lynne!
Photo courtesy of James Cridland

Cruddas Targeted in Labour Dirty Tricks

The Mail on Sunday today contains a puff piece on Hazel Blears and a piece on Jon Cruddas which he will find very embarrassing. I am sure there is no link between the two!

The Cruddas story accuses him of buying a second home in Notting Hill to enable his child to be educated there. It was clearly leaked by one of the rival deputy leadership camps. I have no idea which campaign is responsible, but the man with most to gain from damaging Cruddas is Peter Hain, who has lost no time in slagging off Alan Johnson and repudiating much of the government policy he has got collective responsibility for. Cruddas has sewn up a lot of the left of centre vote which Hain is targeting. Hain knows he cannot win unless much of Cruddas's support transfers to him, and he's willing to do what it takes.

It's turning nasty.

PS Nice to see the Mail on Sunday take my Clive Betts McJobs story a little further HERE.

Blears on the Ballot

I bring you the glad tidings that My Little Chipmunk has secured enough nominations to stand in Labour's Deputy Leadership contest. Rejoice, rejoice!

Hazel Goes Nuts After Online Shop is Pulled

It hasn't been a good week for my little chipmunk, Hazel Blears. Today she was way behind in a YouGov poll on who should be Labour Deputy leader, and it has now emerged that her online shop has had to be closed down after it was revealed that the NUTS ABOUT HAZEL T-shirts could be linked to a Bangladesh factory disaster in 2005. This is from the Press Association...

Ms Blears said she was urgently investigating suggestions the supply chain for the garments could lead to a firm linked to the disaster in which dozens of people were killed and when the factory building collapsed in April 2005. She also pledged to donate cash to a fund for victims' families and demanded "swift answers" from the supplier over the alleged links as her campaign team
threatened to urge its other customers to mount a boycott until assurances were
provided. Spreadshirt - who supplied garments for the website - was a "highly
reputable and award winning on-line supplier", a statement on hazelblears.com
said. However, one of the items it supplied came from Bangladesh via B&C/The
Cotton Group which, the website statement said, had been a customer of Spectrum,
the firm which operated the factory.

An "angry and upset" Ms Blears took immediate action in a bid to limit any political fallout from the claims with the formal battle to succeed John Prescott expected to begin shortly. A range of merchandise such as "Nuts for Hazel" T-shirts, "Hazel Beers" beer mats and mousemats featuring Ms Blears in her biking leathers have been the subject of much Westminster discussion. She said: "It has been brought to my attention that one of the T-shirts available on my deputy leadership campaign website can be sourced up the supply chain to a company linked to a tragic disaster two years ago at the Spectrum Factory in Bangladesh. I am investigating this claim with some urgency. I am angry and upset at any suggestion that a company my campaign is using might be unethical in any way. My online campaign shop is supplied by www.spreadshirt.co.uk which appears to be a reputable company." She said that as well as suspending the shop section of the site, she had written to Spreadshirt and would be contacting some of the company's other clients. "I shall be making a personal donation to the families affected by the Spectrum disaster two years ago," she said, adding that she would also ask a campaign volunteer who was visiting Bangladesh in the near future to meet with representatives of the workers.

The word 'rattled' springs to mind.

Running a Labour Deputy Leadership Campaign: Lesson 94

Do not send personal letters to the office staff of Conservative MPs...

You'd have thought this might be self evident, but not content with sending personal letters and glossy brochures to House of Commons researchers and secretaries of Labour MPs, my little Chipmunk is now sending them to Tories as well. Two people in Keith Simpson's office have received them today together with this heartwarming message from Hazel...

"I know from experience how important you are. You are the unsung heros of our
movement and I want to thank you for the work you do... Now, give me your vote and make sure your bloody boss votes for me too..."

OK, OK, I made the last sentence up.

Blears Poaches Harman's PPS

Hazel Blears is a woman who, when she makes you an offer, you don't refuse it. She's angered Harriet Harman, her rival for the Deputy paperclip collector Leadership, Harriet Harman by headhunting her PPS. The unbelievably named Robert Flello has jumped ship to become PPS to the little chipmunk, leaving Harman PPS-less. Quite what it says about Harman's qualities are probably best left to you to imagine, dear reader. What it says to me is that Mr Flello doesn't want to work for a woman who thinks the only reason she should become Deputy Leader is that she can put the letters 'f' and 'e' in front of the word male.

However, I'm sad to report that all is not trundling totally according to plan for the chipmunk. More and more Labour members are reported to be bemused by how Hazel Blears has managed to get their email addresses. Kerron Cross blogged about this yesterday and LabourHome is also covering the subject. People are putting two and two together and assuming that she must be getting the lists through her role as Labour chairman, something she has consistently denied she would do. I suspect the answer is that she has some very ingenious staffers who are compiling email addresses from many sources and spamming them. There's no law against it, but it may make as many enemies as it does friends.