Hazel Blears is stepping down from the cabinet. What is the betting she was pushed?
My hunch says that the people who have resigned this week have been the ones who have had the messiest expenses of the whole scandal - and that they have realised they have no more credibility left ahead of tomorrow's polls and have done the decent thing in leaving office. I hold no brief whatsoever for this crowd of loonies, but Jacqui Smith's resignation and the resignation of Blears today just gets rid of two grossly overpaid underachievers.
The Star for this shows a kind of hopefulness that with those two troublemakers gone, Labour actually have ditched the problem cases. Whether Alistair Darling - equally damaged - goes too, I don't care so long as it points the spotlight at Cameron's own nest of corruption too - including a big fat cheque for the £350,000 he has made on his house at our expense. Bloodletting may peversely make Brown's cabinet stronger rather than weaker.
Remember that sauce for the Labour goose is sauce for the Tory gander. I don't want an election until all those guilty of this morass of sleaze have been wiped from the face of the earth.
Meanwhile the Torygraph seem to have a vendetta against our friend Mr Howard. Nice one, Michael. Why they have chosen to cover his poor excuse for largesse by making out that his expense claims are anything untoward. The Lovers suggest a need - an almost parasitical need - for the Telegraph to argue this out and that it may reach a conclusion that exonerates him rather than condemns him to the same fate. Reading the Torygraph article, I am hard pushed to see a taxpayer funded mortgage or capital gains, duck islands, moats, or even a Snickers bar. It's nice to see the BBC providing a forum for one of the cleaner claims to be defended as well as getting out the ducking stools or an order of service for auto-da-fe. The Lovers suggest a resolution for Howard that transcends this and enables him to make more choices later about his own future. Would that others were so lucky.
