Hazel Blears slams Labour 'failure'
- 00:01:28
- ITN
Hazel Blears slams Labour 'failure'
Communities Secretary Hazel Blears says the Government has been guilty of a "lamentable failure" to get its message across to voters. In a newspaper article, she said Labour's reputation had suffered a "titanic battering" in recent weeks and warned that the party faced "dire consequences" if it did not re-connect with the public. She also took a dig at Gordon Brown's infamous YouTube appearance, saying: "YouTube if you want to. But it's no substitute for knocking on doors or setting up a stall in the town centre." In a hastily issued statement, Ms Blears said that her comments had not been intended as a criticism of Mr Brown, who enjoyed her "100 per cent support". But the comments will resonate with those Labour MPs who have become increasingly dismayed with the Prime Minister's leadership. They come after a bruising week for the Government with setbacks over Gurkha settlement rights and MPs' expenses and the much criticised smear campaign proposal against leading Tories. Like some of Mr Brown's most outspoken critics on the Labour backbenches - such as former home secretary Charles Clarke who said he felt "ashamed" to be a Labour MP - Ms Blears is closely associated with the Blairite wing of the party. She was particularly critical of the handling of last week's vote on settlement rights for Gurkha veterans which resulted in a highly damaging first Commons defeat for Mr Brown since becoming Prime Minister. "We approached the Gurkha issue purely rationally and were mown down by a wave of emotion in support of these brave, loyal fighters," she said. "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." Reports also suggest that Labour backbencher Graham Stringer, who led a failed attempt to oust Mr Brown last year, will be meeting senior party figures this week to decide whether to launch a renewed effort to remove him. Former minister Kate Hoey said that a leadership challenge could emerge if Labour did badly in next month's European and local council elections. "I think if we do extremely badly in the European elections, there's no doubt about it, people will start talking again," she said.
ITN | May 3, 2009
