Blears responds to Monbiot
It was far too much to hope that Hazel Blears would reply to George Monbiot’s open letter in anything approaching a substantive fashion. After all, this paragraph really left her pretty much nowhere to go…
You remained silent while the government endorsed the kidnap and the torture of innocent people; blocked a ceasefire in Lebanon and backed a dictator in Uzbekistan who boils his prisoners to death. You voiced no public concern while it instructed the Serious Fraud Office to drop the corruption case against BAE, announced a policy of pre-emptive nuclear war, signed a one-sided extradition treaty with the United States and left our citizens to languish in Guantánamo Bay. You remained loyal while it oversaw the stealthy privatisation of our public services and the collapse of Britain’s social housing programme, closed hundreds of post offices and shifted taxation from the rich to the poor. What exactly do you stand for Hazel, except election?
Her reply printed in the Guardian today while generous on the face of it, was perfunctory and looks like an attempt at a photo opportunity:
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.
To which the reply should really be something like:
Re Hazel Blears’ invitation to Salford (11 February): Hazel, I would like to invite to visit Fallujah and allow some of the young residents to show you around the city. Then you will see why I won’t be voting Labour ever again.
‘US officials report that “more than half of Fallujah’s 39,000 homes were damaged during Operation Phantom Fury, and about 10,000 of those were destroyed” while compensation amounts to 20 percent of the value of damaged houses.’ There’s a photo opportunity for you, Hazel. Spin that to your advantage.
Posted on February 11th, 2009 at 12:46pm under New Labour
| Related posts... • George Monbiot meets Hazel Blears • Hazel Blears’ proletariat profligacy • It’ll end in Blears |
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“39,000 homes were damaged during Operation Phantom Fury, and about 10,000 of those were destroyed”
I was in Salford from 2000-2001, and it seemed that someone had already waged that level of punishment on the city. Either the place has changed a hell of a lot since, or I can’t imagine how it would provide a glittering endorsement of the present state of the country.
So, Salford’s twinned with a Potemkin village – who knew?
Justin – I’ve now read Blears’ reply. I didn’t realise you’d quoted all of it. Blears sounds like she wanted to have the last word but couldn’t up with a convincing argument. I wonder whether Monbiot’s going to make a secret visit to Salford, just to rub it in – or will he just send a her a signed copy of one of his books?
Sorry, I’m a dog with a bone on this…
Here’s d squared with a snippet which might explain why Blears’ reply was so brief and hopeless.
Plus – here’s Blunkett!
You bodged the D-squared link! Where is it?
Try here (I’d post the thread link, but it doesn’t seem to show up in preview).
Nice one. Cheers.
[...] to Redpesto in the comments, we find no less a political titan than David Blunkett has waded into the Hazel Blears-George [...]
D-squared may be right. However this suggests that somewhere in our political system there are filters that exclude intelligent people and only let dummies past.
Guano – it’s not that Blears is stupid; rather, her kind of uncritical and unthinking loyalty renders incapable of acting on principle, or with much in the way of originality/talent, whilst ensuring that she could easily float to the top like…no, best stop there. As Monbiot rightly says, there are figures like Blears in all major/ruling political parties.