And indeed, Vale, Blears. Back to "the people of Salford", the people dearest to her heart.
My view on Blears as the Last of the Corporation Socialists have been rehearsed a couple of times round these parts, but I still think I was right about her career. The reply to George Monbiot's open letter was completely summatory:
Re the “open letter” by George Monbiot (10 February): George, I would like to invite you to Salford, and allow some of my young party members and myself to show you round our city. Then you will see why I’ve been voting Labour in the Commons these past 12 years.
That was the entire text. Monbiot's j'accuse was about a thousand words of indictment from environmental policy to the war in Iraq. Hazel's response was "why don't you come to Salford, then you'll understand?". The idea is that if we all took the time to meet a handful of teenage Labour hacks, and look at a few freshly painted (but still rather grim) housing estates, suddenly the scales will fall from our eyes, and we will Get It.
Not actually an evil kind of politics, but a horribly limited one, and quite disproportionately irritating. Vale.
Ding dong, the witch is dead, as Phil Gould said. In a sense, I'll miss her - I quite liked the idea of her, it was the content that drove me up the wall. I wear long nails, honey, so I can scratch your back (department of obscure lyrics quoting working three shifts and facing huge serviced office bill).
ReplyDeleteIs it really a general rule that declining governments have crap ministers? I have a sample size of two to draw upon from memory -- the Major years and right now -- but I can't help wondering whether the Tory cabinet of the early 60s (or perhaps the Callaghan cabinet) was also pretty threadbare. All the decentish ones seem either to burn out, get shuffled, run into scandal or kick the bucket.
ReplyDeleteAll the decentish ones seem either to burn out, get shuffled, run into scandal or kick the bucket
ReplyDeleteIt looks like "all political careers end in failure" is true of groups as well as individuals. Starting with a pool of about 50 New Labourites, they've all been through the cabinet in decreasing order of competence.
The only way to avoid that would be to recruit new people into the project, but for some reason that doesn't happen in goverment (possibly everyone is too busy), only in opposition.
but for some reason that doesn't happen in goverment (possibly everyone is too busy),
ReplyDeleteAlso, I suspect, vigourous defence of the boundaries by those lucky enough to be in the inside.
There does seem to be a suggestion that this isn't adieu but is in fact au revoir.
ReplyDeleteMaybe she will come 5th in the deputy leadership this time?
ReplyDeleteThe real question is why Jack Straw and Geoff Hoon are still there. I lean towards Jamie's theory that Straw murdered Robin Cook, but I agree it's a minority taste.
CAPTCHA: stabs. Appropriate.
by the way, it is utterly indefensible, classist and patronising of me to mention this, but there is something strangely apposite about the MP for Salford being caught fiddling housing benefits. It's like the MP for Gretna Green being caught scoffing shortbread.
ReplyDeleteIsn't today Dan the day you do your post about 10% of electorate being nutters, and 10% single issue and so on and repost it on CiF etc etc.
ReplyDeleteIn a normal year yes, but this year is the year that I keep fucking shtum until I know whether I'm going to be crowing about my "BNP won't win" prediction or looking for excuses about it.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, back to "Corporation socialists". I'd leave out the Socialists bit, but other than that it might be more true than you think: Blairites in local government have always been very big on the idea, quite reasonable and proper in itself, that would the council is there for is service delivery and that's all that matters.
ReplyDeleteFine as far as it goes: what's bothersome about it (and why Blears was really hated) is what they'll say and do in order to get elected to the office from where they to Deliver Services.
That and the nest-feathering, of course.
I would say that the difference is that the Blairites follow a Birtist model (NB: James Purnell was Birt's Director of Strategy) under which the customer is king, or at least some lip-service is paid to the market model, while Blearsite corporation socialists don't actually care whether or not the eventual customers want the goods and services they're being provided - they're a producerist rather than a consumerist lobby group.
ReplyDeleteYou can separate the Blearsites and the Blairites? How do you like your vegetables sliced?
ReplyDeleteWell, the alternative is to describe someone like David Blunkett as a Blairite.
ReplyDeleteWould that be wrong? He surely was in factional terms.
ReplyDeleteYou know what's shocking about the original Blears attack on Monbiot is how utterly adolescent it is. If you didn't know its provenance, you'd guess the author's age was 17, tops.
ReplyDeleteDoes she have a daughter? Some kind of Freaky Friday accident maybe? Could explain quite a few things.
I blame the internet. It's surprising she didn't write LOL.
ReplyDelete