Is Hazel Blears asking for money?

Many politicians are merely vastly over-promoted, like Jack Straw. But there are a select few who make the flesh creep.

One such is Hazel Blears, that robot of correct New Labour speak - today there is an attempt to convince us that she is human; this blog leaves readers to form their own views.

But Ms Blears has her uses. When she speaks, you can be sure it's bang on message. And here she is talking about how to defeat the BNP. "We need to rebuild our local democratic institutions", the BBC reports her saying, "so there can be no democratic vacuums". And, she adds, "We need well-funded political parties".

Is this a signal that the state should fund established political parties as a bulwark against the BNP? That our taxes should be used to tell us what to think?

There is no respectable argument for state funding of political parties. The red herring of the BNP doesn't change that.