Blears to encourage Cabinet ministers to do 'real jobs' » Central government » 24dash.com

Cabinet ministers should spend time doing "a real job" in a bid to help them be more "normal", Communities Secretary Hazel Blears is to suggest.

She will use a speech tomorrow to warn colleagues they can easily become "remote" and that they needed to immerse themselves in real life issues.

And she will call on Gordon Brown to move Cabinet meetings out of Number 10 and take them on tour around the country in a bid to connect better with voters.

The Government has been under sustained attack - including from within its own ministerial ranks  - for being out of touch with voters' everyday concerns.

Ms Blears, who last year spent time stacking shelves and on the till at Tesco, will say that she faced that charge repeatedly while campaigning in the recent local elections.

Labour went on to a serious thumping at the ballot box, increasing questions at Westminster about Mr Brown's future as PM.

Ms Blears will tell the Social Market Foundation: "Every Government minister should immerse themselves in the lives and communities of the people they serve. It is all too easy for ministers to become remote, cooped up in departmental offices, driven from meeting to meeting, and enveloped by civil servants.

"We need to create the space for Ministers to remain grounded and normal."

She is expected to go on: "People think politicians are on the make. They think we're living in our own world, unaware of the harsh realities, and so we need to fix that.

"Just imagine if the Cabinet meeting took place at the British Legion, Swindon, the Town Hall, Grimsby, or the Victoria Community Centre in Crewe. There is no good reason why not.

"Imagine if the meeting was preceded by sessions with Cabinet ministers meeting local people, listening to their concerns, engaging in discussion, local schools getting involved.

"Interviews for local newspapers and community radio. And no doubt it would have a direct impact on the decisions made.

"Last summer, I introduced the idea of cabinet ministers getting back to the floor by spending some time in workplaces, away from the media, doing a real job.

"I ended up at Tesco's for three days, stacking shelves and on the tills. I won't tell you which one of my colleagues got to be a train driver for the day.

"This should become the norm."

Ms Blears will say that making "empowerment" a key political battleground - including plans to put more local assets into community hands and increasing the use of "citizen's juries" - would "allow the Government to prove that we are still on the side of the people who pay our wages and afford us the incredible honour and privilege of serving as MPs or ministers".

Shadow communities secretary Eric Pickles said: "This is an effective admission that Labour ministers in Whitehall are out of touch with the interests and concerns of the British people.

"But spending a day stacking shelves in Tesco clearly failed to bring home to ministers the effect of Gordon Brown's 10p tax hike on the low paid."