Bill Jamieson: Biker Blears revs up as Labour hits road to oblivion

Published on Thursday 4 June 2009 21:43

VROOM, vroom! Vroom, vroom! Off to her motor bike Nirvana goes Hazel, to remain as an MP, "reconnect with the British people" (sic) and (this is not made up) "to remind them that our values are their values".

Oh, really? Barely have we recovered from the astonishing chutzpah of this line than the Prime Minister in return expresses the hope that (and I quote exactly) "it will not be long before you can return to government".

I do so hope not. Amid all the vroom, vroom, has she, or he, or we, so quickly forgotten the flip, flip?

Whatever the exact unravelling of events ahead, one image lingers to mark not just the demise of this government but the collapse of the Labour Party as we know it. It is that of a smirking Ms Blears, bathing in the media spotlight, cheeky badge to the fore, the assassin triumphant that her knife had well and truly struck home.

How breathtaking that she seemed to have overlooked, and gave every appearance of believing we, too, had overlooked, the matter that had brought her to this intense moment of attention: a Labour Cabinet minister caught out in an opportunist piece of tax avoidance – not just on the flipping of one property, but, we now learn, two. It seems Hell hath no fury like an artful tax dodger caught.

But the greater fury of voters, left to face this government's mountain of debt and tax, has still to come.

In the meantime, her knife has truly burst the Labour balloon. For it is hard to detect anywhere in the sulphurous rebellion of ministers and back-benchers any unifying or coherent point of view or critique or programme – never mind any sense of contrition or apology for what has happened.

There is no idea that informs a premiership that would in substance be different to, or better than, the one they seek to topple. Indeed, the distinguishing feature of this coup is that it is quite bereft of any idea – for government, for the constitution, for the economy or for the eye– watering mountain of debt and borrowing for which they are in large part responsible. The leader they championed just a few months ago as the saviour of the world economy, the man with the plan, is now to be tossed overboard, moral compass and all.

Ms Blears wrote in her resignation letter of her wish to return to the grass roots and reconnect with the people. But for what purpose and idea? What seems to drive her is activity itself, a vacuous busyness, a frenetic activism for its own sake. For some, her persona exudes a strange appeal, akin to sexual attraction. For others, it excites fantasy of another sort: an enormous mallet poised to drive her deep into the ground.

Her vision of Labour, that party of purpose, that movement of mission, has no unifying conviction or compelling raison d'tre outside of the possession and retention of office.

Remember that the trigger point of this crisis was the disclosure of a systemic abuse of the parliamentary expenses system. Claims for wide-screen televisions, hi-fi systems, electrical gadgets, furniture and garden equipment rained down on the Fees Office. Above all, the expense claims centred on second, or multiple, home ownership: the very obsession with material possessions that Labour was prone to despise in others.

The defence was that all of this was "within the rules" and thus a permissible entitlement. Few seem to have applied the common-sense check as to whether this was a reasonable use of taxpayers' money. This, in itself, was part of a wider cavalier attitude about government business and spending: not just that greater spending of itself was a measure of moral virility, but that government itself knew better than taxpayers how to spend.

Coinciding as it did with the onset of recession, a severe credit squeeze, falling house prices and rising unemployment, not only has the scandal outraged voters who feel the political class has shielded itself nicely from the burdens the rest of us have to carry, but it has also sensitised voters to those other areas where taxpayer money has been wastefully or self-interestedly spent.

Other than a belief in activist government for its own sake, it is hard to discern what Hazel Blears' Labour is now for or about. Indeed, it is hard to recall what some of these ministries, such as "Communities", or the children's minister or Cabinet Office minister did or achieved. Better, surely, than a reshuffle would be a non-replacement no-shuffle for some of these posts.

Certainly, without a defining idea other than the possession of red boxes, Labour faces every prospect, not just of an electoral defeat but of a wholesale unravelling of the party. It faces a future of fissiparous faction, with some rallying round "traditional" core values, others moving towards a new centre or centre-left party: Labour without Blairism pitted against Blairism without Labour.

What Labour "is" or represents is as shifting and transient as the Blairism from which it has sought to escape. That Hazel Blears has become the defining image of this ambiguity and confusion is no accident. If tax avoidance is a legitimate activity for members of an administration committed to high spend and tax, what are the voters expected to follow: the rhetoric of ministers or their practical example?

Her rage is understandable to this extent: a transparent difference in treatment between herself and other Cabinet ministers, including Chancellor Alistair Darling, who had also "flipped" houses. It gave the unfortunate impression that the famous moral compass of the Prime Minister was set aside so that he could use the debacle to rid himself of those least loyal.

But to where, or what mission of government, is Ms Blears' grass-roots reconnection to lead the party? Like a dedicated biker, she goes vroom, vroom, round and round, revving up, blazing a trail with a busy roar, but going noisily nowhere.

Thus does Labour face no mere crisis of government but its road to oblivion as a party.