Guess who got sacked?

A quick recap for the uninitiated: Hazel Blears is a hideous dwarf who first Blair and then Brown kept in the Cabinet as Minister for No-one Can Remember What. Blears managed to neglect to pay tax on some property she had made a killing on via public funds. Brown pronounced himself unimpressed and Blears behaviour 'totally unacceptable'. Blears 'voluntarily' paid the £13,000 in tax some nasty people had been suggesting she ought to have paid in the first place. She made a big display of wagging the cheque in front of the cameras (see above). Blears was NOT sacked but resigned as part of an attempted Blairite coup against Brown on the eve of Euro/local elections. her timing pissing off the three remaining grassroots Labour members.

So far so grubby and uninteresting.

Enter Lisa Greenwood, a very junior civil servant, who sent an e-mail from her work computer to Ms Blears's website saying MPs had "swindled taxpayers".
The e-mail contained her work address at the Department for Children, Schools and Families (don't government departments have stupid names these days?)Miss Greenwood contacted the minister via a link on a website called - erm - theyworkforyou.com. She wrote to 'I was appalled to see you on national television this morning waving a cheque around as if it was going to make everything OK. You are not sorry at all. (Only sorry that you have been caught.) You are a disgrace. Why haven't you been arrested and why have you not been sacked? Not that my comments will have any impact. I doubt you will even read this'.

Lisa Greenwood was understandably pissed off that the money Blears had trousered until caught out was only £3,000 less than she made as an annual salary. Initially she had tried to send the comment via her personal hotmail account but for some reason she couldn't send it that way. So she sent the e-mail via her work address.

Result - she has been fired for breaching civil service impartiality rules. Blears wasn't sacked - but for this infraction the unfortunate Lisa Greenwood was.

Two questions arise: firstly, why such an extreme penalty exacted for what on any sensible view ought to be viewed as a minor infraction at worst? It just looks plain vindictive. Secondly, how did the use of the work e-mail address come to the attention of the Department for Whatever-it-is-called. Has she been fingered and if so by whom? But there is a mystery here. Theyworkforyou have pointed out that it would never have revealed who the person posting the comment was, and moreover that that comment has never appeared on theyworkforyou. This seems to be accurate. So if this is right, how did the Department for Whatever-it-is -called know about the heinous comment? Do they spend huge amounts of time checking on theoir own staff e-mails? It would be interesting to know. The rabbit is contemplating an enquiry to this effect under the Freedom of Information Act.

On a more cheerful note, what drama to end the First Test! Two points: though I don't knock 20/20 cricket - it's hugely entertaining - it could never produce drama such as that laid out in the last hour or so as Anderson and Monty defied all logic and expectation. Like the Alamo except more so. Secondly, how typically English - to produce a sort of triumph out of a complete shambles. Makes you proud (sort of)...