BCC and its uses

Congratulations to the web team at the Harriet Harman campaign, who forgot to use the Blind Copy function when emailing every Labour Councillor in the UK that they had an address for. This enabled Cllr Linda Smith of the London Borough of Hackney to hit reply all and send several thousand people this message (I'm not the only person in my household who's nuts about Hazel):

"Dear fellow Labour councillors

As Harriet Harman's campaign seem to be unaware of the blind copy function and have allowed us to communicate with each other in this way, I am writing to urge you to cast your first preference vote in the deputy leadership election for Hazel Blears and to use your second preference vote for Alan Johnson.

I believe that both these candidates have acted in a principled way during this campaign and have not postured to the left or tried to distance themselves from the government that they have been part of and that has won us three general elections.

They understand that the policies which will appeal to the broad electoral coalition needed to win a fourth term Labour Government are not necessarily those that are called for in the letters page of the Guardian and around the dinner party tables of the chattering classes.

I am particularly supporting Hazel because she is an excellent campaigner who has a real commitment to rejuvenating our party from the grass roots up. We need a Deputy Leader who you can imagine rallying our activists from the steps of the campaign battle bus, a Deputy Leader who is proud to shout about our achievements, not someone who's election strategy is to apologise for the Labour government they were part of.

Yours sincerely,
Cllr Linda Smith
London Borough of Hackney"