Hazel Blears’ proletariat profligacy
Anybody else enjoying the sight of Hazel Blears doing her ‘ee, am from Salford, me‘ prolier-than-thou salt-of-the-earth schtick while waving around a cheque for 13 grand like a little white flag of undignified desperation?
If she’s done nothing wrong then why write the thing? Would she have written it if the story hadn’t come out? Would she have written it if her claims hadn’t been leaked and instead released by Parliament with her addresses redacted thus hiding the practice of ‘flipping‘?
How does this go across with the great unwashed of Salford, do you reckon? I’m thinking mainly of those who fiddle their benefits to get by and are regarded as moral lepers by the likes of Hazel (‘In a recession, there’s no space for freeloaders,’ she said at the beginning of the year). Can’t she wave her magic chequebook around to get those people out of trouble? You know, for the good of the people of Salford?
Update: Craig Murray:
But the sight of a “Public servant” who can at the drop of a hat dash off a current account cheque for over £13,000 is deeply unedifying. For more than half her constituents, that cheque was for more than a year’s income after tax and national insurance. It was nearly three years of the state pension.
Hazel Blears:
That’s why I’ve taken this personal decision to send this cheque which is the amount that would have been paid had it been liable. Which it wasn’t. But so what? You can comply with the rules but the public are really, really angry…
But so what? Thirteen grand is a so what. Hazel, there are a lot of us that are really, really angry about much of what you’ve done while a cabinet minister. Can we all have cheques as well?
Posted on May 13th, 2009 at 9:25am under New Labour, Sleaze
| Related posts... • George Monbiot meets Hazel Blears • Blears responds to Monbiot • It’ll end in Blears |
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• 11 Comments |
Is it just me, or is there a blank space on the cheque where the words “Inland Revenue” should be?
If you want to know what people in Salford without £13,000 to wave about on television think of Hazel Blears and the Labour Party in general, hop across to the excellent Salford Star website; a great example of community media in action, and a thorn in the side of Salford council. I’m not connected with them btw.
Is it just me, or does the picture look familiar somehow?
I’ll try that again shall I?
Ha! Great minds…
She should be made to eat her hair.
ahem
And what happens when the cheque bounces….
Not sure she is oafish enough for the loadsamoney persona – too much of that Lancastrian primary-schoolteacher gentility.
But after watching that clip in our household we all agreed that it bore a strong resemblance to an episode of The Secret Millionaire – you know, the “reveal” at the end of the show:
“now I’ve not been absolutely straight with you… My name IS Hazel, but in reality I have been a very successful businesswoman and I am actually quite wealthy. And I have got this cheque for £13,000 that I want to give to you because… because, um. Well because the cameras are rolling.”
[...] And that utter lack of self-awareness was evident again when — upon hearing that her expenses might become public knowledge — she decided to wave around a personal cheque for the pesky £13,332 of capital gains tax she’d avoided by “flipping” her second home just before selling it for a healthy profit. Not that she’d done anything wrong, you understand? It was all legal and above board. But she’s paying back anyway. Now that we all know about it. And here’s the cheque to prove it. [...]
[...] the skill of a Renaissance Venetian and seemed to be be in possession of great wealth, such that writing cheques for five-figure sums was something she could do without a pause for [...]
Hazel Blears, isn’t she out of control?