Liar, liar pants on fire

[Peikko 1,575]

I regret the timing of my resignation, says Hazel Blears

Hazel Blears has said she "enormously" regrets the timing of her resignation from the government on the eve of last week's local and European elections.

The former communities secretary denied the resignation had been designed to inflict maximum damage on Gordon Brown.

In an interview with the Manchester Evening News, Blears said that, after thinking "long and hard", she was sorry about the way she had made the move.

She insisted she was not part of a plot against Brown and had not wanted to destabilise him.

The Salford MP also made it clear that she had no desire to step down as a constituency MP.

Blears rocked the Labour party when she told Brown, at around 9.30am last Wednesday, that she wanted to leave the government for "personal reasons".

Her decision left him to field difficult questions about ministerial confidence in his leadership at prime minister's questions soon afterwards.

Blears said she had thought that because two other ministers, Jacqui Smith and Beverley Hughes, had announced they would stand down, she could do the same without sparking a "huge firestorm".

The following day, Labour's share of the vote dipped under 16% in the European election. "In the end, that judgment was wrong," she told the MEN.

Prior to her resignation, Blears faced the spectre of being demoted or shuffled out of government over the expenses row.

She had handed a cheque for more than £13,332 to the taxman when it emerged she had avoided capital gains tax on the sale of her London flat, which was registered as her second home with the Commons' office.

Blears – rumoured to have felt Brown had singled her out for criticism over behaviour neither worse nor better than that of some other cabinet ministers – told the MEN she was shocked when the PM publicly described her actions as "totally unacceptable".

"At that moment, everything became much more difficult," she said.

"I had come to the view it was not tenable to remain and that I should go back to bread and butter basics in Salford.

"I only talked about it with colleagues who are friends and not with other cabinet ministers. There was no plot.

"In hindsight ... I should have waited until after the election. The effect on the party is something I will live with for ever."

She said she was "not the person the national media has painted me [as]", adding: "I had not done many of the things that had been alleged against me."

She said she also regretted wearing a brooch with the slogan "rocking the boat" on the day she resigned, and her "thoughtless and cruel" "YouTube if you want to" remark in a recent Observer comment piece – a reference to Brown's widely-panned appearance on the video-sharing website.

The prime minister had accepted her apology immediately, she said. "It was flippant, and I only realised later how hurtful it was," she added.

Blears said Brown had sent her a "very generous" letter after she resigned. "He said he wanted me back in government," she added.

In her resignation statement last week, she declined to offer the customary expressions of praise and thanks to the prime minister.

Instead, she declared that she wanted to "help the Labour party to reconnect with the British people, to remind them that our values are their values, that their hopes and dreams are ours too".

Blears also used her interview with the MEN to say she had never considered stepping down as a constistuency MP and hoped there would be no attempts to deselect her at a constituency meeting later this month.

"What I do welcome is the chance to talk to the party and go through everything that has hapened and acknowledge my mistakes," she said.

She rejected claims, made by the former Europe minister, Caroline Flint, that women were "window dressing" the Labour cabinet.

"I was counter-terrorism minister, and that is not window dressing," she said, but added: "We do need more women at every level."

So, the poison dwarf regrets her attempted coup does she? Only because it failed

Edited June 12, 2009 by Madame Cleo

[Peikko 1,575]

Oops, can someone move this please? Thanks

[almaty 19]

i will sister purple...

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

I thought Ann Widdecomb was the "poison dwarf". After all, she was the basis for one of the villains in the Harry Potter books.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Blears also used her interview with the MEN to say she had never considered stepping down as a constistuency MP and hoped there would be no attempts to deselect her at a constituency meeting later this month.

wait, what.

[Peikko 1,575]

I thought Ann Widdecomb was the "poison dwarf". After all, she was the basis for one of the villains in the Harry Potter books.

The name I heard for her most recently was 'Squirrel Nutkin', but that was Sandi Toqsviq. Ms Blears is short, does have the severe hair cut and does do the head bobbing thing. She isn't very bright it would seem from this latest episode

Blears also used her interview with the MEN to say she had never considered stepping down as a constistuency MP and hoped there would be no attempts to deselect her at a constituency meeting later this month.

wait, what.

At least it wasn't 'Nuts'

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

... does do the head bobbing thing.

sexy.

[Peikko 1,575]

Thank you almaty *waves*

... does do the head bobbing thing.

sexy.

[Pinocchio Liberal 268]

... does do the head bobbing thing.

sexy.

I guess so. that would depend on the paper sack you put over her head.