Hazel Blears is the chairman of the Labour Party. The Labour Party have decided, in their wisdom, that cutting the number of hospitals will improve the NHS, since the NHS clearly has too many doctors and nurses. Hazel Blears is, apparently, in agreement. Yet she is protesting against the closure of her local hospital.

How is this anything other than shameless nimbyism? She’s perfectly happy for hospitals to close across the UK, but when it comes to the hospitals in her constituency, they’re all vital. I wonder if, perchance, this has anything to do with the potential to lose her oh-so-precious seat? She should take a leaf from Ruth Kelly’s book, and swap her beloved seat for an altogether safer one, and basically come out and admit that her career is more important that the local people she is supposed to be representing.

Is this the first time we’ve seen a cabinet minister protesting against a decision with which they apparently agree? It’s certainly an odd spectacle. But then, she’s an odd minister. Like many of Blair’s babes (mentioning absolutely no names), more of a huge-flower-on-the-lapel permasmile Blairite automaton than a person.