Hazel Blears MP - Curriculum Vitae
Age: 51
Constituency: Salford
Website:
Majority: 7,945 votes.
Education: Wardley Grammar school, Eccles sixth form college, Trent Poly, Chester College of Law
Union: TGWU
Career: Worked as a solicitor in a private practice, then for a number of councils. Author of several books: The Politics of Decency, Communities in Control and also Making Health Care Mutual.
Jobs, committees, ministerial posts: Served as a councillor on Salford city council from 1984 to 1992, and chaired Salford Community Health council for four years before being elected to parliament in 1997. PPS for Alan Milburn at the Department of Health (1998) and followed him when he became chief secretary to the Treasury (1999).
During the 1997 parliament, Ms Blears was also vice-president of the Local Government Association, vice-chair of the home affairs select committee, Labour party development coordinator and a member of the health and culture, media and sport backbench committees.
In the second term, she was parliamentary under secretary for health (June 2001) then minister for public health (May 2002). She then moved to become a Home Office minister, then minister of state with responsibility for crime reduction, policing, community safety and counter-terrorism. In May 2006, Ms Blears became chair of the Labour party and minister without portfolio at the Cabinet Office.
Relevant experience: Ms Blears’ ascendancy in government in the last three terms has been helped by her loyalist credentials. She can boast both long government experience and a strong role in Labour party circles thanks to her position as chair. Ms Blears resisted calls to stand down from this post when she joined the deputy leadership list of hopefuls, insisting that no conflict of interest arose.
Strengths: Ms Blears’ has few gaffes to her name, though her suggestion that people doing community service should wear bright orange gear to shame them for their crimes caused an outcry from within her own ranks. She is seen as ultra-loyalist, a welcome quality in a deputy role.
Weaknesses: Ms Blears’ Blairite credentials may work against her, though she was careful not to include any photo of Tony Blair in the many photographs adorning her 13-page manifesto document for the deputy leadership.
Ms Blears has nevertheless staked her deputy leadership bid on the Blairite theme of continuing to be relevant and attractive to "middle class" voters and holding the political centre-ground. She got off on a bad foot with the unions recently when she backed private equity firms who unions say buy out ailing companies to asset-strip, axe jobs and introduce anti-union measures.
Why she wants the job: In the Winning for Labour document, Ms Blears explains that she wants to use the deputy leadership role to be the party's "campaigner in chief", the membership's voice in cabinet and "the minister for delivery and the minister for trust".
In her own words: “Our deputy leader should be the party members’ voice at the cabinet table, putting the party’s interests first. Anything which falls short is an insult to our activists. That does not mean that the prime minister should automatically appoint the deputy leader as the deputy prime minister.
“I see the role of deputy leader as being the campaigner-in-chief for the Labour party. When I helped set up and run the parliamentary campaign team in Labour’s first term, we campaigned for Labour in safe seats as well as marginals. We got Labour’s message out and attacked the Tories in over 300 constituencies. I would bring the same level of enthusiasm and focus to our campaigning as deputy leader.”
Likes: dance (tap), motorcycling, fell walking.
References: Blears' supporters include health ministers Caroline Flint and Andy Birnham, European parliament Labour group leader, Gary Titley, and other MPs such as Stephen Pound and Kali Mountford.