Hazel Blears, bloggers and professional politics

Hazel Blears isn't daft, so I suspect that she wrote (and then pre-briefed) her speech attacking "nihilistic bloggers" with the clear intention of picking a fight with those same bloggers.  After all, Guido, Iain et al aren't exactly the most popular people in left-wing circles (nothing to do with the Left's jealousy at still not having comparably effective political paramilitaries of their own, of course.)

Don't mess with Hazel Blears

And of course, it's worked, with Guido quick to take the bait and reply with an interesting mixture of valid criticism (of both politicians and Lobby journalism) and weird moral cant (‘Guido has a clear sense of morality – "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you."' –   Really? Perhaps the Reverend Guido will give us his considered theological view about how to apply Matthew 7:12   to road safety?) 

But as attacks go, the Blears offensive is a fairly bizarre one.  Look at her main accusation against bloggers:

"Mostly, political blogs are written by people with disdain for the political system and politicians, who see their function as unearthing scandals, conspiracies and perceived hypocrisy." (My italics)

 Hmm.  Anyone out there going to sue her over that one?  Perhaps she should recall Mencken's thoughts on politicians, dogs and lamposts.

 Anyway, no doubt there will be other salvos fired in this particular silly spat, but I reckon Ms Blears will be pretty pleased if she stirs up the blogosphere for a day or three. But if this turns into a just blog-row, we might miss the more interesting point she makes about our political class.

Says Ms B: "Increasingly we have seen a 'transmission belt' from university activist, MP's researcher, thinktank staffer, special adviser, to MP, and ultimately frontbench. Now, there's nothing wrong with any of those jobs, but it is deeply unhealthy for our political class to be drawn from narrowing social base and range of experience."

Well, arguably yes there is something wrong with those jobs: is it really healthy to have people who owe their income to politics, who have to think twice about resigning on a point of principle because they have nothing else to fall back on? 

Never mind navel-gazing* bloggers retailing village gossip. Surely the more significant cause of political disconnection is the "them and us" notion of a distinct political class of careerists, an elite with its own social system, values and language that excludes the vast majority of the country?  

And more immediately, what is Hazel saying about her own colleagues?   Her "transmission belt" almost perfectly describes the careers of David Miliband, Ed Miliband, James Purnell, Andy Burnham, Douglas Alexander….  Should make for a fascinating discussion in Cabinet.

 * – yes, I can see mine as I type this, thanks.