Hazel Blears

There's safety in numbers in this expenses-exposure business, isn't there? They're all at it, after all. Well not exactly all - David Cameron hasn't been caught out with his hand in the till, neither has Ed Miliband, nor (despite initial excitement) has Gordon Brown, today following his usual practice of only apologising for other people's mistakes. (It's interesting to speculate how things would have looked if all this had been revealed while Tony Blair was in office.) But if they weren't all at it, enough of them were at it to render demands for individual responsibility both exhausting and, in a sense, impossible. If every cabinet minister, and every junior minister, and every shadow minister, with a dodgy expenses claim were forced to step down - well, there wouldn't be many of them left, would there? We would no longer have a government, or many MPs. Of course, there are those who would say that wasn't such a bad thing, especially after watching Speaker Martin's demented performance in the Commons this afternoon.

But if not all, then who? Because, though the important things are apt to get lost amidst the vast, overwhelming welter of information that the Telegraph continues to pour forth, some cases are clearly worse than others. Take Hazel Blears, for example. Here's someone who manipulated the "second home" status blatantly, bestowing it upon three properties in the space of a year. Having used the allowance to furnish her constituency house with an expensive power-guzzler of a TV set and a brand new bed, she then redesignated her London flat as a second home, using the status to avoid capital gains tax which would otherwise have been due.

That's right: a cabinet minister, belonging to a government that has (though only recently, it is true) made much moralistic to-do about tax havens and the kind of creative schemes rich bankers and their accountants dream up to withold money from the Inland Revenue, blatantly manipulates the system so as to avoid paying tax. And then, for good measure, she uses the second home allowance to furnish her new London flat with, among other things, an expensive TV and a mattress. Meanwhile, the constituency she represents, Salford, is among the poorest in the country.

This is pretty shoddy behaviour, is it not? Hazel Blears may not be the worst of the worst, but she's one of the worst. Worse, for example, than David Willetts with his lightbulbs or even John Prescott with his loo seats. She must at least be in, say, the first decentile of Parliamentary badness. One would hope so, at any rate. It would be truly disturbing to think that her behaviour were par for the course.

Oh, yes, it was "within the rules". Which means, presumably, that her profiteering and tax-avoidance, her preference for expensive televisions - including for her London bolthole - when someone with her (I assume) heavy workload can hardly have much time to watch even a cheap set, is all the fault of the rules. Honest, M'Lud, it was the rules made me do it. They practically forced me. Pathetic. Risible and pathetic. She should be hiding her head inside a bucket and refusing to venture out. Instead she appears, chirpy as always, grinning as though she's just received a particularly nice birthday present, in front of the cameras to say, and I quote, "the system is wrong, it needs to be changed". No contrition, no apology, not even the tiniest hint that she may, personally, have done something she oughtn't to.

What is so wrong about the system, Hazel? That it allows people like you to manipulate it to their personal advantage? That might, if true, be a reason to change the system. But it doesn't absolve you of one iota of personal responsibility for your shamelessness and greed. That's your business, not the system's.

The only possible sense I can extract from Blears' "it wasn't me, it was the rules" shtick is that the "rules" function like some sort of drug, and that Hazel (like some of her colleagues, but unlike others) is an addict. As with drink, so with parliamentary allowances, there are some who never touch the stuff; others - perhaps a majority - who manage to consume moderately and within healthy limits; and a hard core of damaged alcoholics who just can't help themselves. They need help, obviously. Perhaps some sort of 12-step programme could be devised to help the likes of Hazel Blears free themselves from dependency. But in the meantime, she shouldn't be running a department of state.

As for whether Blears' manipulation of the system was indeed "within the rules", this must be open to question. "Flipping" between second homes might be allowed technically by the House of Commons, but Blears also told the Inland Revenue that her London flat was her main home at the same time she was telling the House that it was her second home. To make things worse, she insisted at the weekend that her constituency home was always her main one. Which sounds to me like an admission of lying to the Inland Revenue. This is not "within the rules": it is a very serious offence, and I hope the tax inspectors are looking closely at her accounts.

But almost more exasperating than the facts of the case is Hazel Blears herself. George Monbiot, writing up a recent encounter with the Communities Secretary in the Guardian, noted her boundless ambition and preternatural levels of self-belief, which he found "terrifying". Like Blair himself, "she appears to be able to persuade herself of a series of improbable but convenient propositions". He wasn't writing of her conviction that her behaviour in the expenses business was "within the rules", and therefore entirely reasonable, but he might easily have been. The worst of this business might be that Blears, like other sleazebound ministers, genuinely believes that she has done nothing wrong.

Chutzpah - or blatant cheek - is a notable Blears characteristic. Just a few days ago she made a splash in the Guardian with her "YouTube if you want to" jibe aimed (it was generally assumed) at Smiler Brown. Even at the time it seemed impertinent, with its assumption that the main faults of Labour were presentational (although they always say that). Labour "need to show we are still in tune and in touch with people" she said. "We need to have a relationship with the voters based on shared instincts and emotions." This from a woman who knew then, even if we didn't, that the world was about to discover how she equipped both her homes with the latest luxury TVs at the public expense. We are dealing, I think, with someone who has ceased to have any contact with normal reality, but who continues to consider herself "in touch" with the ordinary working class from which she sprung. How does she do it?

Another favourite Blears theme is the danger of cynicism. Cynicism among the public about politicians, that is, not cynicism among politicians when it comes to putting their fingers in the public purse. Feb 6 saw her responding to one of Monbiot's regular attacks on the political class. Monbiot's comments, she wrote, were not merely cynical but "corrosive", and amounted to nothing more than "playground taunts". She accused him of basing his opinions on prejudice. "Imagine if cabinet ministers voiced their opinions without any evidence base", she said, once again demonstrating her lack of acquaintance with irony. Her main objection to Monbiot, though, was that he wasn't elected, and yet presumed to criticise politicians who were!

That little rant was, in a sense, a follow-up to her most notorious excursion into the messenger-shooting business, her speech to the Hansard society in November that accused media commentators of operating "without scrutiny or redress", demanded editors free up more space to carry the unedited thoughts of "elected politicians" and, famously, accused bloggers of the twin crimes of being negative and Tory. There were, she conceded, "some informative and entertaining political blogs" - the ones written by politicians, naturally - but complained that, by and large, they were "written by people with a disdain for the political system and politicians, who see their function as unearthing scandals, conspiracies and perceived hypocrisy".

Like - um - fiddling Parliamentary expenses, perhaps?