Hazel Blears. Maybe not for the last time.

Ah, yes. All is well. I can remember. I've mentioned here, on this blog, before, perhaps twice, that Hazel Blears, the British parliament member for Salford, not Manchester, is awful. Not just awful, but repulsive. For some reason she is considered worthy of note, possibly on account on her lowly stature (half dwarf and half human) and her sponsor, McDonalds (see eyebrows). Now, not often do I descend into personal attacks (regular visitors to this blog will not know exactly what I'm talking about), but in her case it seems warranted. I first ran up a long list of reasons to hate Blears when I saw her make an appearance on BBC's Question Time in 2004. As we've also noted here, Question Time has all-but become an applause-based competition, in line with new measures adopted by the British public to Americanize even one of our most pioneering of assets. And so, to Blears. She made a cameo appearance on the BBC's radio version of QT, Any Questions?, which is almost as bad as the Now Show. Wait a tick, that's ridiculous. Not nearly as bad as the Now show, but bad nonetheless. The show takes on a very similar format to Question Time, though without the timeless David Dimblebee, and in it Blears was asked to comment on the fine that the BBC were issued after the Andrew Sachs telephone scandal late last year, involving Jonathon Ross and Russel Brand. Why her opinion on this matter is of any consequence whatsoever is beyond me, but perhaps not you, dear reader. Knowing me, as you may, you should be concerning yourself with why, I, Robert Iddiols, is, wait, am concerning myself with such trivialities. Well, it's well within my powers to expose flaws in logic, wherever the offence, and I do hate Hazel Blears. I mentioned that above, earlier in the post. Now, Blears announced that she thought that Brand and Ross should be made financially accountable for the fine that the BBC is being forced to pay and cough up themselves. In doing so, she said, the burden would be placed on the criminals and not on the law-abiding license-fee payers. This stance was roundly applauded and henceforth, predictably agreed upon by the remaining troupe of panelists. Okay. You may be saying to yourself, though I hope not, What's he on about, that's a perfectly respectable, dignified statement, brimming with rationality and logical consistency and I think I'll rub-out her name on my hit-list. But wait, dear reader! She forgets to mention that the BBC did, in fact rather profit from the affair. The fine is a meagre £150,000. It's worth pointing out that, spread among license-fees, that would hardly make a scratch, though it shouldn't have to, and it won't anyway. Brand promptly apologized after the matter and realised that the BBC wasn't quite cut-out for his style of talking, so he left, along with a £200,000 a year contract. What's more, Jonathon Ross' temporary departure saved another £1.5 million. That means the license-fee payer is over 91% up on the deal, so in no way are we being burnt by the anti-christ, sorry, the BBC (I keep doing that). I wonder if we see a reduction in the fee next year. Then again, I'd happily pay double if they would permanently erase her name from the list of possible panelists for any show, any time, anywhere. And, if she must speak in the House of Commons, please pixelate her face.