I come to you straight from Hazel Blears’s launch for Labour’s deputy leadership and my ears are ringing. I don’t think it’s tinnitus. Indeed, I know it’s not. Instead it is a new condition called Hazelitis or, as it is destined to be known, Bleary Ear.

The problem lies in Hazel’s words-per-minute output. It is a shorthand nightmare. The words crowd together, hundreds of them in every minute, gasping for breath. It is like battery farming with sentences. It is hard to explain but if you force yourself to read this column at five times the normal rate, you will see what I mean. The brain simply cannot take the strain and so the ears, at some point, just stop working.

Hazel Blears is small, red and the party chairman, but the only really interesting thing about her is that she rides a motorcycle. There was a rumour that she would roar into the launch in her leathers. She didn’t, but I can see why, for the launch was held in what appeared to be the dressing room for a company that sells something called “verger’s regalia” (robes, Communion cups, that kind of thing). I’m not sure that they get many motorcycle mamas seeking the very latest in Lenten-wear.

Hazel bustled in, babbling about what a fantastic launch she’d had in Salford at the weekend. She wished we had all been there (no one moved a facial muscle at this) and told us all about who had been. “Most importantly, there were lots of Salford Labour party members!” she cried, adding: “Did I say most importantly?” She stopped for nanosecond, which may be her version of a comic pause. “Most importantly was my dad! He was there!” I believe this may have been a Hazel joke. Hazel’s words were filling the room so quickly that it was getting hard to breathe. I can only give you snippets, for obvious reasons. Hazel told us that she wants to “build on success”. Indeed, these were the very words in her brand-new brochure. Her slogan is “Winning for Labour”. She told us this as if it were interesting. Why does not realise that it would only be interesting if she said it was “Losing for Labour”?

Hazel is pathologically upbeat. The Labour Party has improved its financial situation “quite dramatically”. This is one way of putting a £23 million deficit. As deputy, she will support “hard-working families who play by the rules”. Her goal is to appeal to people in Croydon, St Albans, Dartford and Swindon. (I can only assume that those words will spark a rush on earplugs.)

But why her? Well, she is a woman and Gordon Brown is a man. “In people’s everyday lives, men and women are working together at the top of organisations to solve problems. I think the public likes to see that!” she chirped, almost surreally now. “You know, in politics, we’re all different people, so we all bring different things to the way in which we deal with problems.”

So is she the most Blairite of the six candidates? “It’s people like yourselves who like to put us in these boxes,” she said, even though very few boxes could contain her and her word output. “Basically for the last ten years I have supported our Prime Minister in doing what I think are some fantastic things! I would continue to support whoever is our prime minister!”

But how would she differ from John Prescott? “Well,” she said, giggling. “I’m small and I’m a woman which will be very different indeed!” Plus, she chirped, she had energy.

Indeed, she is like one of those battery-operated rabbits who just never stops. We shuffled out, ears almost bleeding, to a rallying cry from the campaign manager, Caroline Flint, perhaps best known as Minister for Obesity. “Hazel Blears doesn’t just talk the talk, she walks the walk. She gets out there. She’s a great motivator. There are no no-go areas for Hazel Blears!”

I suspect this is true. If only there were, the world would be a much quieter place.

Salford folk

— L S Lowry drew his stick people there

— Coronation Street’s Weatherfield is based on Salford

— The Smiths were photographed for the cover of The Queen is Dead in front of the Salford Lads’ Club

— Mike Leigh, the director, was born in Salford In 1926, first free birth-control clinic in the North of England was founded above a Salford pie shop

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