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EspañolHAZEL BLEARS
'Hazel Anne Blears MP' (born May 14, 1956) is a British politician and is the Labour Member of Parliament for Salford. She was Minister without Portfolio and Labour Party Chair between May 5 2006 and June 24, 2007. Since June 27, 2007 she has served as Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government
Early life and education
Hazel Blears was born in Salford in 1956, the daughter of a maintenance fitter, and was educated at The Wardley Grammar School in Swinton, The Eccles Sixth Form College, Trent Polytechnic, and the Chester College of Law, where she completed a law conversion course in 1977.
Career outside Parliament
Hazel Blears started her career in Salford as a trainee solicitor with Salford City Council in 1978. After two years, she went into private practice for a year, before joining Rossendale Borough Council as a solicitor in 1981 and in the same year was elected as a Branch Secretary in NALGO. In 1983 she became a solicitor for Wigan Metropolitan Borough Council and later became Manchester City Council's education solicitor. In the following year, 1984 she was elected as a councillor to Salford City Council and she served on the council until 1992. She was Chair of the Salford Community Health Council for several years.
Parliamentary career
She stood in Tatton in 1987 against Neil Hamilton and in 1992 in Bury South where she lost by 800 votes. At the 1997 general election she was chosen to contest her home town seat. She was elected as the Labour MP for Salford.
After the election she became the Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to the Minister of State at the Department of Health Alan Milburn until 1998. She spent ten months in 1999 as PPS to then Chief Secretary to the Treasury Andrew Smith.
In the run-up to the 2001 General Election, Blears was a member and later deputy head of the Labour Party campaign team, a group of backbenchers tasked with campaigning around the country. This raised her national profile. Blears has been a supporter of the Lowry theatre and art gallery in her constituency.
Ministerial career
After the 2001 General Election, Blears entered Tony Blair's government as the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department of Health, responsible for Public Health. In this job she launched the Government's "5-a-day" campaign to get people to eat more fruit and vegetables.
Blears was promoted in 2003 to Minister of State at the Home Office and was responsible for policing, crime reduction and counter terrorism. She was elected to the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party in 2003. After the 2005 General Election, on 7 June 2005 she became a Member of the Privy Council. In a cabinet reshuffle following Council Elections on 4 May 2006 Tony Blair appointed her Party Chair replacing Ian McCartney.
Secretary of State for Communities
On 27 June 2007 Gordon Brown appointed Blears as the new Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, replacing Ruth Kelly who had proven to be controversial in this capacity. The position of Minister for Women and Equality has been given to Harriet Harman.
Deputy Leadership candidate
On 24 February 2007 she announced her candidacy for the election for Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, making her one of six candidates for the job formerly held by John Prescott.[1]
In her announcement, she said Labour must remain the party of "success and aspiration". Calling on the Party not to distance itself from Tony Blair, she called for the renewal of the "big tent" coalition which brought Labour victories in 1997, 2001 and 2005. Blears' supporters include Cabinet Ministers Ruth Kelly, Tessa Jowell, Hilary Armstrong and John Reid, Health Ministers Caroline Flint and Andy Burnham, European Parliament Labour leader Gary Titley, and other MPs such as Stephen Pound, John Heppell and Kali Mountford.
Throughout her campaign Blears has stressed the importance of a full-time Deputy Leader of the Party who acts as its campaigner-in-chief. Responding to media labelling of the candidates she has stated "No more Blairites, no more Brownites, we are all Labour. Granita is shut."
On June 12 2007, part of a building in Dean Farrar Street in Central London which houses the Blears campaign office collapsed.[1] [2] is a link to a Google Map showing the area affected.
On the 24th June it was announced that Blears had been placed in sixth place (of six) in the election for Deputy Leader.[2] On June 28 2007, she was offered the position of Secretary of state for Communities and Local Government (CLG)in Prime Minister Gordon Brown's first cabinet.
Private life
She has been married to Michael Halsall since 1989. Halsall is a biker and introduced Blears to motorcycling; she is now a biker in her own right.
Criticism
In March 2005, while Home Office minister, Blears implied that section 44 of the terrorism act would disproportionally affect the Muslim community.
“Dealing with the counter-terrorist threat and the fact that at the moment the threat is most likely to come from those people associated with an extreme form of Islam, or falsely hiding behind Islam, if you like, in terms of justifying their activities, inevitably means that some of our counter-terrorist powers will be disproportionately experienced by people in the Muslim community.”[3]
In August 2005 Blears, while standing in for Home Secretary Charles Clarke (who was on holiday), suggested the 'rebranding' of ethnic minorities in favour of adopting US-style hyphenated titles such as Asian-British-Canadian.[4] This proposal was quickly withdrawn by the Home Office, as the government moved to distance itself from the idea. Nevertheless this inspired Private Eye magazine to 'rebrand' Blears as 'That stupid woman who Charles Clarke left in charge while he was sunning himself on holiday'.[5]
Trivia
★ As a young child, Hazel Blears and her brother Stephen played street urchins in the film ''A Taste of Honey'' which was filmed in Salford. [6]
★ Along with several other Labour women MPs, she is a member of a tap-dancing troupe known as the Division Belles. Other members include Caroline Flint, Beverley Hughes, Laura Moffatt, Meg Munn, Joan Ryan and Dari Taylor.[7]
★ Hazel is only 4 feet 10 inches (147 cm) tall.
References
1. Blears to run for Labour deputy and admits party 'disengaged'
2. Harman wins deputy leader contest BBC News | June 24, 2007 (retrieved 2007-06-24)
3. Home Affairs Select Committee, Uncorrected Minutes of Evidence, 1 March, 2005, HC 156-v.
4. The UK's ethnic name game, BBC, August 9, 2005
5. Private Eye Magazine, August 2005
6. http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article2296845.ece
7. http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour/story/0,9061,1542999,00.html
External links
★ Hazel for Deputy Official Deputy leadership campaign site
★ Hazel Blears MP Official parliamentary site
★ Home Office - Hazel Blears MP Official biography
★ Guardian Unlimited Politics - Ask Aristotle: Hazel Blears MP
★ TheyWorkForYou.com - Hazel Blears MP
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