Dunwoody done very, very, very goody

Not entirely unreasonably I think, my initial reaction to Gwyneth Dunwoody's astonishing assault yesterday in the Commons on the dwarfish Hazel Blears was that it was part of the Blarite undermining of the Bottler that, inevitably, is now poised to turn very, very nasty, whatever Tony's protestations of innocence as he surreptitiously unleashes his attack dogs.

After all, Mandelson, though with less precision that might have been expected, has already had one go. Charles Clarke, a man who has even more reason to be bitter, another.

Yet Dunwoody's flaying of Blears was clearly of a different order.

It was that rarest of rare parliamentary performances: the defence of a genuine principle made with no thought for party or personal advantage. It was also notably well delivered. In short, it was heartfelt, honest and true.

This is the kind of attack any current Labour minister, entangled in self-spun webs of deceit, desperate for any momentary advantage and terrified of the Bottler's increasingly random clunking vengeance, is strikingly ill-equipped to rebut. That it came from a member of their own party makes it all the more devastating.

But it underlines, too, just how much the career politician has undermined the House of Commons. Dunwoody may be even more hideous than Anne Widicombe. She may also be a socialist. But as the longest serving woman MP in the House and with zero prospect of a government job, she has the overriding advantage of being able to say what she thinks.

In short, she is worth the two Ballses, both Milibands, the Alexanders (Mr and Mrs) and the Bottler eight million times over.

By comparison, the tiddly-widdly Blears registers as a momentary blip at best, a tiny, irrelevant distraction.