Wahey! PunchMeNow Blears has resigned!

[LupusinaLlamasuit]

The BBC are reporting. No link yet.

She is 'happy to be going back to the people of Salford'

Yes. And they'll be more than happy to eat her alive have her I imagine.

Blood hell, Gordon won't have anyone left to reshuffle at this rate!

Not that I'll be shedding any tears for Hazel, her rise to prominence was a mystery to me, having come across her as a junior minister.

I am trying not to gawp at the TV since I have huge amount of marking but all the political commentary is saying this is a Brutus/Caesar/steps moment.

I think he will have to go now, or call an election.

My god the BNP will be jumping for joy!

Poor old Gordon - he may be rubbish but there's something tragic about having schemed and plotted and waited so long to get to the top, then being effing useless when you get there. Who'd have thunk he'd be a second John Major?

No love lost for HB here, but a bit depressing also that all the Blair's babes women are quitting...

Thank god for that. Re no-one to reshuffle - that's probably a good thing, I'd have thought. Where the ones who have resigned highly thought of by the public? I don't think so.

And is she going to have a visit from the cops when she gets there?

Don't be upset about the Blair's Babes quitting. There's a reason for it you know. Now let me see, what was it? Oh yes, rampant cheating.

Well, leaving the Evil Squirrel aside, I have met Beverley Hughes and thought she was excellent, committed and genuine. I don't know if she is implicated in the expenses nonsense. And despite Smith's expenses idiocy, I thought her a good home secretary and a good advert for very competent women in cabinet.

Darling next?

PMQ's should be interesting!

Looks like an organised putsch by the Labour women. Caroline Corr Flint next? Surely Gordon can't survive beyond the weekend?

rofl at Caroline Corr Flint.

She is quite fit isn't she (and I dont 'do' women, as such)

Agree Beverley Hughes is A Good Sort and Smith was competent although carried on the rather disappointing tradition of recent home secretaries thinking the job is about mass surveillance and wholesale attacks on civil liberties.

I am really getting worried about the number of women leaving government. On Nick Ferrari on LBC this morning all sorts of tossers were ringing in saying women don't belong in politics (yeah I know, it's the radio equivalent of the Sun) but I'm starting to think the Old Boys of Westminster are getting their own way after all.

Bring Kate Hoey in to Government! Kate Hoey for PM!!!!

She'll go on to a get some highly paid positions on boards of big companies, as they all do, and will rake it in even more.

Am gunning for Darling though. I did actually know him at one point, and a more arrogant and conceited man has never walked the earth...

kate hoey is great....

i'm really getting worried, starting to think the tories will win next election

Oh, didn't like Jackie Smith at all. Sounds just like a Civil Service management consultant drone who just will Not listen to staff.

Caroline Flint got lots of applause on Question Time last week (surprisingly, I thought. Partner said it was because people fancied her )

Christ. Certainly didn't expect this after I gleefuly voted for Labour in 1997. I remember the feeling of hope (that was obviously prior to the cynicism setting in). Personally I do not like seeing all this unravel. It's bloody horrible. Who now of any decency and talent will choose to become an MP?

'Brown respects and understands Blears' decision. He believes she made an outstanding contribution to public life'

Means: 'the fucking witch stabbed me in the eye and I hope she dies a horrible death of swine flu'

I neve3r could take to that woman.

I used to want to be in politics, baced out of council elections when i found I was PG with ds4, wouldn't touch with a abrgepole now, too honest.

Isn't it also a bit sad (cheating aside) that the pressure of the media and the job has lead so many of these women to leave? Wouldn't most of us want to see more women doing these jobs, rather than fewer? Volunteers anyone?

Its not just labour women who are leaving. Look at Julie Kirkbride, what she did was no worse than many male MPs but the media made her the focus of the expenses fury and hounded her to resign. I am not saying she was innocent, but why was she worse than many of the men?

I wonder if the issue is more that Parliament is a nightmare place for women with families anyway and the pressure of this has just tipped them over the edge. How crap and depressing.

Perhaps the constitutional review that must come out of this could include exploring the family unfriendliness of politics...