Has Hazel Blears signed away her political career?

Until I saw her flourishing that cheque on the news yesterday, I had some sympathy for Hazel Blears. Like Iain Dale, I suspected that No. 10 was encouraging the press to go after her to deflect attention from other ministers who had made embarrassing expense claims.

Now I sincerely hope her career is over.

As Craig Murray says:

the sight of a "Public servant" who can at the drop of a hat dash off a current account cheque for over £13,000 is deeply unedifying. For more than half her constituents, that cheque was for more than a year's income after tax and national insurance. It was nearly three years of the state pension.

Her actions yesterday treated the voters with contempt. I look forward to her sacking in Gordon Brown's forthcoming reshuffle.

Something else. In a report in this morning's Guardian says:

Challenged over why she "flipped" the designation of her second home, Blears said she was "forced" to name her constituency address as her second home by Commons officials: "The only reason that my Salford home was designated my second home was at the insistence of the fees office, who said that when you become a minister you live in London."

This cannot possibly be true. Whips office minister Baroness Thornton, for instance, claims that her main residence is the bungalow occupied by her mother in Yorkshire. (Later. And Shahid Malik is another example.)

How much simpler things must have seen when Blears was a little girl.