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Sacked minister rehired: The same old New Labour

Harriet HarmanI have mused repeatedly and often on this site about how many of the country’s top politicians have been sacked or have resigned in the past for unprofessional or improper behaviour, perhaps best exemplified by the way David Blunkett managed to resign from Government twice within twelve months. It’s revolving door politics, which just looks bizarre to anyone outside the political world.

Is there any other job on Earth where you can be fired and shortly thereafter rehired by the same organisation? I’m all for second chances, but when you’re a public servant in a Government which claims to be ‘whiter-than-white’, surely it’s a matter of honour that once you’ve done something so improper that you are forced out of your job, you don’t put yourself back in such a post.

Yet, over in the parallel universe that is the world of the Labour Party, Harriet Harman, who was sacked in 1998 after a thoroughly unprofessional public argument with Frank Fields over public service reform, has now been elected Deputy Party Leader. Madness.

Of course, two years prior to her undignified sacking, she was embroiled in another scandal when she chose to send her own children to a selective school, whilst advocating the abolition of selection for the rest of the nation’s children, in an impressive ‘Well it’s good enough for your children, but not for mine’ move.

It’s difficult to see how anybody is supposed to have confidence in her, given her past record, I’ve really no idea.

Also, I’d like to point out that I’m one of the few political bloggers not to have wrongly predicted a win for Alan Johnson – or, indeed, like Sky News, have reported it as fact for some considerable time. But then again, since I made no prediction, I guess it would’ve been difficult for me to be wrong. 😉

This post was filed under: News and Comment, Politics.

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