Hazel Blears resigns before elections

Hazel Blears. Photograph: Type Cub/Flickr

Hazel Blears, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, resigned from Gordon Brown’s Cabinet on Wednesday, citing a wish “to reconnect with the British people, to remind them that our values are their values, that their hopes and dreams are ours too”.
The timing of the resignation is especially damaging for Mr Brown, as it comes a day after the resignation of his home secretary, Jacqui Smith and astonishingly, only one day before crucial local and European elections take place across the country.
The Prime Minister is widely predicted to reshuffle his Cabinet on Friday in an attempt to detract attention from what are expected to be disheartening election results for the Labour party.
During parliamentary questions at lunchtime on Wednesday, Brown repeatedly refused to guarantee that Alistair Darling – the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the man supposedly responsible for guiding Britain through the recession – would still have a job next week.
As rumours spread that the Prime Minister may himself be forced from office, party activists fret that all this politicking is unlikely to endear the Government to the electorate. With voters already angry at MP’s expenses and ongoing recession, this could hurt them further at the local elections.
One London Labour party member bemoaned the Cabinet’s preoccupation with the expected reshuffle.
“They are completely detached from the concerns of voters,” he said. “This manoeuvring is just political game-playing. It is all about furthering ministerial careers and distracting attention from the elections.”
Ms Blears says she intends to return to the backbenches: “I am redoubling my efforts to speak up for the people of Salford as their member of parliament. I am returning to the grassroots, where I began, to political activism, to the cut and thrust of political debate.”
Known for her closeness to Tony Blair, the former Prime Minister, Blears was always considered an uneasy member of the Brown Cabinet. Nevertheless, she has held the position of communities secretary since 2007, when she was promoted despite performing badly in the Labour deputy leadership election that year.  
Her Blairite tendencies have continued to rankle though, and some commentators are bound to see in her resignation a plot to undermine the Prime Minister.