Fight is on for out-of-favour Jacqui

Jul 22 2009 By Jon Walker

Jacqui Smith, the former home secretary, is still hoping for a return to high office.

She has said she hopes to return to the Government, if Labour wins the next election, despite leaving the Cabinet last month.

But in a recent interview with magazine Total Politics, the Labour MP admitted she faces a struggle to hold her marginal seat of Redditch, in Worcestershire, which the Conservatives will be targeting.

She said: “I’ve contemplated defeat at every election since 1997 ... I’ve always operated on the basis that the next election will be my last.”

Ms Smith was effectively forced to quit after details of her expenses claims appeared in newspapers, an experience she described as “horrible”.

She said: “If your reputation and family life and career were being dragged through the mud, then you wouldn’t be a human being if you didn’t lose sleep over it.”

* MPs have been getting some stick for taking an 82-day summer break.

In theory, they keep working during most of the long summer recess, serving their constituents and attending their party conference. But they desperately need a holiday, according to MP Sir Patrick Cormack (Con Staffordshire South).

He said: “I have never known a time when the atmosphere has been so depressing here or morale so low.

“I do not know a single colleague who is not counting the days to the recess – not because we are desperate for a holiday, much as we might need one.

“We just want to get away from here.”

* Lichfield MP Michael Fabricant has been to Norwich to campaign for the Conservatives in the by-election taking place there.

But he has told friends he hopes to get home without falling ill – after the Labour candidate came down with swine flu.