The inscription on this bauble read, `Rocking the boat', which I imagine is what she thought she had done, and why she came into town, all pert confidence and smiles.
But what usually happens to people who rock boats? They so hinder their comrades in their struggles to master a storm that the captain throws them overboard. Mythology and literature and even Hollywood is full of such maritime pests. Jonah is the prime ancient example.
But when I hear of boats being recklessly rocked I myself tend to think of Stubby Kaye in Guys and Dolls. "Geddown, gedddown, geddown," wail his mobster associates to stop him doing it, at the devil's bidding.
I don't suppose it was possible for Gordon Brown to prevent Hazel shipwrecking whatever few Euro or local election chances he still had by resigning her local government brief on the eve of yesterday's polls. The Prime Minister had left it too late for that.
But he could and should have hurled the chippy redhead in the briny three or four weeks ago when she publicly sneered at him for taking his pathetic Cheshire cat smile of a message on to YouTube.
I wrote at the time that in declining to fire his insubordinate Communities Secretary he had further weakened his already dwindling authority. And so it has proved. Brown is a captain too tender, or maybe too craven, and certainly too slow to kick mutinous butt.
And so Hazel Blears will take her own tap-dancer's absurd ideas of Labour's case to Salford market place, leaving her broken-down old captain adrift on rotten planking and helpless to save the few of his loyal lieutenants still aboard.
She walked out on him, for sure, suspecting that he might, at last, demote or dump her if she didn't. But the political ground on which she now capers may be quicksand.
"I want," Hazel proclaims, "to get stuck in, roll up my sleeves and be the person I am - working for Salford." She sounds like Gracie Fields, doesn't she? But there is no absolute guarantee that the locals will dance out of their shacks behind her, singing as they go. It is just as likely they will run her out of town. Do the Salfordians want her to be their champion? It remains to be seen. Many of them will have seen those television shots of her belatedly paying back £13,000 capital gains tax on the sale of a London flat she had designated as her main home.
It's a funny place, London, to keep a main home for someone claiming to be Salford through and through. And £13,000 is more than some poor Salfordians can claim for much vetted benefit in a year.
Allegations
On top of that, fresh allegations have surfaced. It is alleged that she made a further £80,000 by avoiding, lawfully, capital gains tax on two other London flats, each designated, for expenses purposes, as a "second home". Crikey, £80,000. You could wipe your lifetime debts out with that if you won it on the lottery.
All the same, Hazel is now back, unshackled from red boxes and ready, as she says, to "re-connect" Labour with the folk she was elected to serve. That re-connection may be trickier to achieve than a pardon for hard-faced expenses claims. She has talked of Labour needing a "meta- narrative" to get its message across. I am not sure what that means, but it looks to me like Greek for electoral fibs. And I doubt voters are prepared to fall for any more of them.
Hazel keeps, as well as a set of dancing shoes, a heavy duty motorbike. Come the election, she may well need to throw a leg across it and drive, at speed, towards a distant sunset.
Too many shopgirls speak `bad' English
INDIGNANT at being asked to modify her strong Salford accent for the comprehension of her customers, Danielle Snelgrove, 18, has quit her job at a men's outfitters in the Trafford Centre.
She walked out after her bosses at TM Lewin suggested she listen to other assistants to learn the requisite formal spiel. "I couldn't believe it, " said Danielle. "I'm proud of where I come from and here they were telling me to bury my roots."
Sorry, Danielle, but I'm on the side of the shop. Every salesgirl needs to speak two forms of English. One is for gallivanting, the other is for work. Both are acceptable, but one is less beguilingly so when selling clobber to the gentry. I go into an outfitter's to buy a shirt, not a `shairt'. And I don't want a `be'er' pair of trousers, I want a better one.
Danielle is a casualty of the state education system's inability or refusal to teach the difference. But she'll probably pick it up in time.
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I wholeheartedly agree with every word.
I watched news footage of Blear's arriving at Manchester Piccadily and my immediate thought was that she looked like a naughty school girl who had just got one over on the headmaster and had plenty more in her armoury to beat him further in the future.
I agree on both topics! Well said.
Well written article. Blears is symptomatic of the celebrity culture that pervades Government, they all love being on the telly. Gordon Brown had Alan Sugar round the other day, commented on Susan Boyle and Jade Goody. An indication of the Labour parties aspirations, confiding with a chap that says “erm” and “stuff” and “ you’re fired” about business, whilst missing the chance to ask Susan Boyle about PR and media stress.
When Blears comes out of hiding (no doubt everything she is doing at present is at the taxpayers expense), will she will wearing a newly commissioned brooch bearing the words 'on the rocks'?
I am no fan of labour, but breathed a sigh of relief the day that Blair left.
Blair and his cronies (Blears included) did everything in the interest of themselves, not in the interests of this country.
Brown has some humility about him, but he should have cut the oxygen supply from Blears weeks ago.
Having said that, I think that Blears may have initiated her own downfall.
The smug expression she wore (alongside her statement of a brooch) when she arrived back to reconnect with her grassroots, must be looking a little perplexed at the moment. If only she would come out of hiding so that we could all see it.
Or perhaps she hasn't finished yet and is spending more of the taxpayers money trying to further destabilise what she claims matters most.
If she isn't deselected, I for one, will do whatever I can to help Martin Bell or whoever else stands against her.
Time to get rid of the Japanese knotweed from amidst the grass roots.
I don't always agree with what you write Andrew, we do live in a democracy after all and we have the right to freedom of speech and thought (for the moment anyway!), but I agree with every word you have written here.
Blears needs a wake up call, she is not the be all and end all and when she does eventually come out of hiding, or is it her plotting meetings, she should realise that she and her ilk have contributed to the demise of a Labour Party which once stood for the working class and now stands for egotistical individuals whose only thought is how much money they can get out of the tax payer.
The young lady whose accent is said not to be right for a particular shop should remember that the customer needs to be able to understand her. She doesn't need to go for elocution lessons but she does need to listen to how other shop assistants address the customer. Why she had to run to the papers I will never understand. What did she hope to gain? Another example of someone wanting their five minutes of 'fame'!
OK - maybe not the most sensible of comments BUT - I just can't watch Hazel Blears without noting just how much she resmbles the character of Delores Umbridge (of Harry Potter fame) - especially that "smile" - now she's left the Ministry of Magic, I wonder what the future holds?
Superb column Andrew, I agree on both points.
Yes, I too agree with everything in your comments. In sailing terms Hazel is adrift, running aground, on the the shoals, beached..... she must think the people of Salford will accept anything if she really believes they will vote for her again.
As for the young lady who is upset because she has been told to refine her accent when dealing with clients, get over it and find a job that does not require one to be understood.
I can't imagine the people of Salford ever forgiving her, just the same as the poor people of Gorton who will can't afford to buy grapefruits will be chocking on the news that Kaufman was spending their money on crystal grapefruit dishes.
Power does terrible things to people. Just as communism does. Both labour and the communists proclaimed that they wanted equal rights for the working man. When they got there, the leaders decided that they were more equal than the rest of us.
But Hazel will stew for a year. She will still earn £70,000 doing it. She will lose her seat and the get paid a handsome resettlement allowance worth another years salary. She may have rocked the boat. But she is laughing all the way to the bank.
Totally agree with every word Andrew. The sight of that woman now makes me cringe. Slightly off-topic - I wish the press would stop pointing out that she's a biker as it's giving us a bad image. She's only a pillion passenger anyway.
So, Ms blears wants to return to grassroots and be back with the people of Salford. Did she ask the people of Salford if they wanted her back? I think not!