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A Blairite but not a yes-man

Sion Simon, who urged the PM to quit, was always a man of letters, says donald malcolm

Whatever became of that bright young Blairite journalist whose witty columns used to adorn the Daily Telegraph and the Spectator, and who seemed destined for great things in Fleet Street? Yesterday we got the answer.

Sion Simon, who gave up full-time journalism to become a Labour MP in 2001, was revealed as one of the co-writers of the 'quit now' letter sent to Tony Blair.

It was his colleague Boris Johnson who urged him to enter politics proper. He won the safe Labour seat of Birmingham Erdington at the age of 32 and began forging what seemed a conventional Westminster career. He served on the influential Public Accounts committee for two years before stepping on to the first rung of the government ladder as an unpaid ministerial aide.

Until this weekend when he decided to tell
It was his colleague Boris Johnson who urged him to enter politics

his mentor he should go. What happens to Simon next? The Brown camp will not necessarily come to his aid - he remains a policy Blairite, and politicians like Brown are invariably suspicious of anyone who has ever shown signs of betrayal.

However Simon's career develops, it will not be conventional. He has known since the age of 17 that he is going blind. He has the congenital and incurable degenerative condition called choroideremia. He wrote movingly in the Spectator of his "fear of the advancing darkness". But as David Blunkett and the partially-sighted Chancellor have demonstrated, blindness is no bar to a ministerial career.

Simon is an unashamed fan of Blair's combative former spin doctor Alastair Campbell. "This country needs him for one very simple reason," he once wrote. "In a world of fawning yes-men he's the bloke who says: 'That's bollocks, Tony', and 'Tony, don't be a prat.' It's what democracy needs."

So now we know whose voice he heard when he drafted the letter.

FIRST POSTED SEPTEMBER 6, 2006

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