Blears: My resignation 'regrets.'

I've already made my disgust at Hazel Blear's actions known, but it is rather amusing to watch the way she is behaving now that Brown has survived what was a blatant attempt at a coup by the Blairite wing of the party.

Ex communities secretary Hazel Blears says she regrets "enormously" the timing of her shock resignation - just before local and European elections.

The Salford MP said she thought as two other ministers had announced they would stand down, she could do so without sparking a "huge firestorm". "In the end, that judgement was wrong," she told the Manchester Evening News.

Labour activists in Salford have put forward a vote of no confidence in her, expected to be discussed next Thursday.

The notion that she thought she could stand down without "sparking a huge firestorm" is simply as dishonest as it is possible to be. She resigned on the day she did - two hours before Gordon Brown was due to face Prime Minister's Questions - precisely because she wanted to bring Brown down.

In fact, she even wore a bloody brooch bearing the legend, "rocking the boat", so it's simply impossible to believe that she didn't know exactly what she was doing.

Of course, she will have us believe that none of this was how it seemed at the time:

She told the Manchester Evening News the "effect on the party", which crashed to an all-time low in share of the vote at the European polls and lost control of key local authorities, is "something I will regret forever".

She said the decision to wear the "rocking the boat" brooch as she headed back to her constituency after her resignation came after four weeks of intense media pressure over her expenses claims, which she said had affected her and her family.

"At that point I just had enough, it was a stupid thing to do in retrospect but it was just putting a brave face on, not going out cowed on the basis of expenses claims which genuinely are not true," she told the newspaper's website.

The truth is that she now faces censure from the Salford Labour party and could very well be deselected by her party, which is why she is now giving us all this mea culpa.

I really hope they kick her out. One week ago she hoped that Brown would fall and that her actions in bringing about his downfall would endear her to the new leader and guarantee her a place in the cabinet.

People who organise coups are often rewarded in this way. However, when the coup fails - as it has spectacularly failed in this case - then the people who organised it tend to fall on their swords.

It will be poetic justice if Blears is forced to fall on hers.

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Tags: Blears, Brown, coup