Hazel Blears, Labour government Cabinet member, writing in the Observer for Sunday, 3rd May:
All too often we announce new strategies or five-year plans, or launch new documents – often with colossal price tags attached – that are received by the public with incredulity at best and, at worst, with hostility. Whatever the problems of the recession, the answer is not more government documents or big speeches.
People want to look their politicians in the eyes and get their anger off their chests. We need a ministerial "masochism strategy", where ministers engage directly and hear the anger first-hand. I'm not against new media. YouTube if you want to. But it's no substitute for knocking on doors or setting up a stall in the town centre.
Third, we need to have a relationship with the voters based on shared instincts and emotions. We need to start showing we understand the instincts, fears, hopes and emotions of the broad mass of British people. We approached the Gurkha issue purely rationally and were mown down by a wave of emotion in support of these brave, loyal fighters. We put ourselves on the wrong side of the British sense of fair play, and no political party can stay there for long without dire consequences. So we need to plug ourselves back into people's emotions and instincts and sound a little less ministerial and a little more human.
Nice one, Hazel, using "we" and "ministers", when the references were so obviously to the actions of Gordon Brown, without benefit of consulting his government colleagues. But the "YouTube if you want to," with its jibe at his notorious video, expressed in an unmistakeable echo of Margaret Thatcher's famous and derisive comment on her pusillanimous colleagues "You turn if you want to. The Lady's not for turning" must have enraged Gordon Brown beyond belief.
issued a statement backing Mr Brown and seeking to "clarify" her position.
"I want to make it clear that the Prime Minister enjoys my 100 per cent support. Any suggestion that I intended what I wrote as criticism of him or his leadership is completely wrong," her statement said.
"I fully support the collective decisions we take as a Government. My article simply calls for the Labour Party to hit the streets campaigning against the Tories in the forthcoming local and European elections."
Mmm, yes, Hazel. How could anyone possibly have taken your article as criticism of Gordon Brown or his leadership?
Do they have some terrifying version of Room 101 at No 10 Downing Street these days? But even O'Brien, the mastermind torturer of "1984", took more than an hour to get his victims to acknowledge their thoughtcrimes and make statements declaring they loved Big Brother.
Perhaps the threat of instantly losing a Cabinet seat was more effective? But surely she realised what the result of her article might be? Or has the Brown entourage got some highly embarrassing stuff on her that they could threaten to release?
Perish the thought.
But, by being shown to have been forced to churn out this preposterous denial, she might still have done for him.
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