Hazel Blears: Difference between revisions

The Rt Hon Hazel Blears
Minister without Portfolio and Labour Party Chair
In office May 5, 2006 – present
Preceded by	Ian McCartney
Constituency	Salford
Majority	7,945 (35.2%)
Personal details
Born	May 14, 1956
Political party	Labour
Spouse	Michael Halsall

Hazel Anne Blears MP (born May 14, 1956) is a British politician and is the Labour Member of Parliament for Salford. She has been Minister without Portfolio and Labour Party Chair since May 5 2006.

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. 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

At the 1997 general election she was chosen to contest her home town seat. Stan Orme, the local MP for over 30 years, retired with a Peerage. She was duly 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 the 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 trusted back benchers tasked with campaigning around the country. This raised her national profile and marked her out as a hard-working and loyal campaigner.

Ministerial Career

After the 2001 General Election, Hazel 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 as Minister of State at the Home Office and was responsible for policing and crime reduction. She was elected to the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party in 2003. After the 2005 General Election, on 2005-06-07 she became a Member of the Privy Council. In a cabinet reshuffle following Council Elections on 2006-05-04 Tony Blair appointed her Party Chair replacing Ian McCartney.

Deputy Leadership Candidate

On 24th 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 currently held by John Prescott.

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 Health Ministers Caroline Flint and Andy Burnham, European Parliament Labour leader Gary Titley, and other MPs such as Stephen Pound and Kali Mountford.

Private Life

She has been married to Michael Halsall since 1989. Michael is a keen biker and introduced Hazel Blears to the world of motorcycling, she is now a passionate biker in her own right. Blears has been a keen supporter of the Lowry Centre art gallery in her constituency.

Trivia

As a child, Blears played a street urchin as an extra in the critically acclaimed film A Taste of Honey, one of the seminal portraits of working class northern life.

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. 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.'

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