Another Blairite legacy dismantled

I've just seen the news that there is once more a cat in Downing Street. (BBC News: No 10 gets new feline first lady) The previous Chief Mouser, Humphrey was unceremoniously driven out by Cherie Blair back in 1997. Now her legacy has crumbled.

Goodbye Blair

And so it's the end of the Blair premiership.

Given all the comparisons with the end of the Thatcher years, I wanted to put up an appropriate Spitting Image clip from YouTube, but I can't load the site right now.

I noticed Cherie Blair shouting "I won't miss you" as she boarded the car. And the country won't miss her either.

Cherie Blair - *never* First Lady

Tony Blair's resignation also means an end to Cherie Blair's non-role as Prime Ministerial spouse. So the Labour Party will no longer have to pay ridiculous amounts for hairdressers.

Cherie Blair has found out the hard way that this is a country where "First Ladies" do not exist and are not wanted. She would have done well to follow Dennis Thatcher's mantra that it is best to say nothing in public. Instead she has spent many years milking being the PM's wife and accumulating all the negatives as well. And her legacy is shown by the fact that none of the serious potential future Prime Minister's wives operates in any way remotely like Cherie.

Cherie still doesn't get it

Following on from my earlier posts the row about Cherie Blair's hair has been reignited by the woman herself. In an interview she has tried to dismiss the affair as a "load of fuss about trivia" and "Who noticed, or who made a big fuss, that the Tory Party paid £3,500 for the leader of the Opposition's make-up?" The two cases are not remotely comparable - Michael Howard was leading the campaign and being put forward as a potential Prime Minister and whilst Cherie Blair is just a hanger on. But with Cherie's cavalier attitude it should comes as no surprise that The Little Red Book of New Labour Sleaze contains several Cherie stories detailing the way she has milked her non-position for financial gain. With Not So Very New Labour trying to introduce state funding for political parties does anyone want our taxes to be paying for pointlessly expensive hairdos for this hanger on?

No to state funding of hairdos

The row about Cherie Blair's hair has caught the imagination of the blogosphere. Amongst the many points discussed, perhaps the most concerning are the continuing poor quality of the Labour Party's spokespersons and the current proposals for state funding of political parties.

The official Labour reaction to the story has been "So what? Mrs Blair worked fantastically hard during the election and visited more than 50 constituencies during the campaign. She is enormously popular with the party and, don't forget, we won the election." Does anyone honestly believe Labour was returned to power because of Cherie Blair's hair?!?! And is she really so popular with the Labour Party? Especially now?

Far more concerning are the proposals in current circulation for state funding of political parties. Is this really the sort of thing that tax payers' money should ultimately be spent? It's twice as much as Peter Kilfoyle (who nominated Tony Blair to be Labour leader in the first place) spent on his local election campaign. He also made the following comment:

This is the problem. We are almost accepting by stealth a First Lady.

There is only one First Lady in this country and today she is 80 years old. The way the Blair behave like a President and First Lady is a total embarrassment for the country. For the sake of us all they must go now.

Amongst the blogs discussing this story are Tom's Little Thoughts, alastair's heart monitor, A Big Stick and a Small Carrot, Ian Plumbley's Thoughts Blog, The Nether-World, On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing, old enough..., An Englishman's Castle, Earlsdon Greens 2006, A Tangled Web, »-(¯`v´¯)-».: Kita's Blog :.»-(¯`v´¯)-», The Officially Original Loch Ness Monster Blog, Charlton Hofie, Conan Vancy - The Voice Of Treason, donbert, Anorak: Voting Booth, Choice Cuts, Isabel and Ryan Klint and itisi.

Is this what the loans were needed for?

The official spending figures for the election campaign reveal that the Labour Party spent £275 a day on Cherie Blair's hair, coming to a total of £7,700. So is the culture of extravagance that generates spending like this one of the reasons why the Labour Party needed to borrow so much money?

Here's some advice for the Blairs in future: Use an ordinary hairdresser. At the same time as getting a good service for a much more reasonable rate, they might actually come in contact with ordinary people and understand how government policy is operating on the ground.

Still the Blairs could have been even more extravagant. Tony could have nominated his wife for a peerage. But no self-respecting political leader would ever do that would they?