Brown's women trouble
Fraser Nelson 1:30am
So how scared should Gordon Brown be of Caroline Flint? In my News of the World column, I
warn against underestimating the wrath of Labour women. They suspect that Brown, in his anger, is now beating up on the female members of the Cabinet and are making a pre-emptive strike.
Remember last summer's rebellion: it was the revenge of the Blair babes. Siobhan McDonagh, Joan Ryan, Fiona Mactaggart, Janet Anderson - with Ruth Kelly being the Cabinet casualty. They all knew they would be briefed against by McBride, that their personal lives would be exposed to the gossip columns. But it was a price they were willing to pay.
McBride did an effective job in the end, identifying and 'outing' them so they could not detonate in a co-ordinated way. But now the Labour sorority is back. Flint wants to know why, if Geoff Hoon and James Purnell are both guilty of property expense tricks, Hazel is being briefed against and denounced as "totally unacceptable"? Of course the reason is that Blears had the guts to write that Observer article saying "YouTube if you want to" so singling her out is a political act. But it seems the iron chipmunk has her friends, too.
Last September, one of the Labour rebellettes explained to me that there is something about Brown's modus operandi that women find particularly offensive: the bullying tactics, the clunking great fist mien, the way he uses attack dogs in a way that even Tony Blair would baulk at. On a deeper level, now, they fear the creeping takeover of the party by the Unite trade union via Charlie Whelan who has also been taken on by female officers in the union and formally charged with bullying. To certain Labour women, they see the Brown-Whelan-McBride-Derek Simpson thing as part of a menacing testosterone-sodden axis. And one that needs to be challenged.
Factor in that Brown has a problem with women voters, and the gender element does indeed add up to one that Brown should be worried about. He'll have no problem from Labour men who do nothing apart from moan into their beer glasses (and a sorry sight they are too, on the Terrace bar of the Commons each night). But Labour women have a track record of action against Brown. And if he's not careful, after leading Labour into third or even fourth place in the election, these Warrior Princesses may well come for him. And I, for one, can't wait.
PS The picture here is reproduced courtesy of the News of the World graphics team. I thought CoffeeHousers might appreciate it.
UPDATE – We have reposted this to the site after investigating a complaint on behalf of Carter-Ruck, Mr Whelan’s lawyers. They claimed that the all of the cases against him were withdrawn. This, as it turns out, is misleading: they were settled in “compromise agreements” with the women concerned.
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Austin Barry
May 24th, 2009 2:56am Report this commentThere's nothing in Brown's bleak, ambition-driven life to suggest any affinity with women, but I would describe the pear-shaped pudge-fest of Whelan, McBride, Nick Brown, Balls and Simpson as testosterone-challenged and smeary-bitchy rather than macho. Then there's the deluded 'Macbeth' Brown himself staggering around the blasted heath of his failed Government and being challenged by this monstrous coven. He must be absolutely livid. 'By the pricking of my thumbs, something misogynistic this way comes.'
strapworld
May 24th, 2009 6:42am Report this commentI think the chipmunk has many friends in the labour party. I also believe her best, long term, strategy would be to resign and make the resignation speech of all time -better than the explosive Lamont and Howe ones.
Such a speech could see the rapid implosion of Brown and his government. A successor appointed who would bring the chippy chipmunk back to the front line.
For all her annoying habits. She is a very capable minister and constituency MP.
I do hope she follows this suggestion. She would serve this country well and do herself no harm whatsoever.
Rosa
May 24th, 2009 7:22am Report this commentIt must be frustrating penning NOTW stuff in single sentence paragraphs. Patronising, or what?
Oscar
May 24th, 2009 8:16am Report this commentStrapworld - this is a very good idea. Having made her YouTube if you want to speech, the Chipmunk should now go the whole way and make her mark in history with a fiery resignation speech.
Fraser Nelson
May 24th, 2009 8:31am Report this commentRosa, distilling it down is tough (at least for verbose types like myself) - but not frustrating. Writing in 17-22 word sentences is far harder than writing in 90-100 word paragraphs but if done properly (see T Kavanagh for the perfection of the art) then it can be entertaining and informative without (hopefully) wasting a second of the reader's time. I start every day with page two of The Sun which is as perfect a summary of the day's political stories and gossip as you could hope for on one page.
King Prawn
May 24th, 2009 9:45am Report this commentFraser,
Do you think Blears brave stance with the Muslim Council is another reason why Brown wnats her out.
If she went, I bet that he would reverse this policy immediately.
Slim Jim
May 24th, 2009 10:35am Report this commentYes, I appreciate the picture Fraser. Do you have any more, ahem, interesting ones? I'm sure I saw Flint posing in a newspaper recently, but she was wearing clothes. At least she has her post-politics career sorted!
Tiberius
May 24th, 2009 12:53pm Report this commentFraser - how disappointing! Surely the rantings of Coffee Housers from the small hours is the essentail start to the day.
TGF UKIP
May 24th, 2009 1:04pm Report this commentStrapworld, I would entirely agree with you had she not shot her own credibility. Her confession and repayment does not appear to have worked.
Incidentally, I think I'm inclined to see a typically Brownite strategy on the expenses issue. It is to admit, nowt, confess to nowt and repay nowt for to do so is to confess wrongdoing. Hence Hoon and Purnell simply fall back on "within the rules and cleared by the fees office."
By kicking the matter into the long grass of "the Star Chamber" Gordon postpones it till when the heat is subsided and the Labour Party can pick its moment to announce "action" and the names of a few sacrificial goats.
Brown is clearly counting on this being overtaken by other stories and then the public remembering the guilty ones being the ones who were forced to confess (predominantly Tories and Blears) and those who made the most spectacular claims. With their usual co-ordinated propaganda skill we can look forward to every Labour member in every interview, no matter what the subject, making mention of moats and duck ponds.
PS Fraser, you asked Balls and Cooper yet whether they paid CGT on their flipping? And Maude too!
dearieme
May 24th, 2009 1:10pm Report this comment"pear-shaped pudge-fest" earns applause.
Fabio P.Barbieri
May 24th, 2009 1:22pm Report this commentLast year, I identified Caroline Flynt as the one obvious and likely-to-rise talent in the wretched Labour front bench. More senior Labour men left her to face the media in the then-disastrous housing arena; and she demeaned herself with calm intelligence and an articulacy that reminded me of Vince Cable. That she was obviously attractive did not hurd. Since then, she has not been allowed before the TV screens once; which suggests to me that someone else beside me had noticed the quality of her performance and did not want her identified as a rising star in a party so disastrously short of such. Let us face it, every Brownite minister, beginning with the absurd Ed Balls, is both talentless and with the TV presence of a potato. The recall of Peter Mandelson was the sign of Brown's despair on this front. Now Hazel Blears has also managed to impress. Let us face it, quite apart from her courageous stance on Islam, a person who can keep grinning while being deliberately and shamelessly targeted by her own boss - practically defying him to sack her because she won't go - is someone who can take it as well as dish it out. I think Brown's frustration with her is rising from day to day, because she is clearly proof against the tactics of bullying and backstabbing that have so far worked with everyone else including Blair. If Flynt and Blears manage to keep their seats in the coming election, watch out for them.
Verity
May 24th, 2009 2:34pm Report this commentWell said, Fraser Nelson! Rosa, clearly you are not a writer. I like Fraser's punchy, vivid writing in the NoTW. It's engaging. (By the way, you capitalised "of" in News of The World in your post.
King Prawn, I'd forgotten about Blears's stand on the Muslim Council. I'm warming to her.
TGF UKIP
May 24th, 2009 4:03pm Report this commentAgreed Verity, I too am a big fan of Fraser's NoW column and style.
Incidentally, it's noteworthy that he is much more objective about Dave and the Cameron Tories for the Screws than he is for the Speccie.
Doubtless, this is entirely down to the respective editorships.
Fraser Nelson
May 24th, 2009 4:53pm Report this commentTGF, I defy you to find any inconsistency in my blogs, speccie or notw pieces. You're right in that my NOTW column in primary colours so there is a difference in style, but certainly not in outlook or conclusion. And I thought Screwtape was your new nom-de-blog - evidently not (unless you're going schizoid ;-)
Diversity
May 24th, 2009 5:47pm Report this commentThe style of the News of The Screws used to be contortedly simple, and horrid. Now that their editor takes notice of The World and its News, the style has improved no end - Fraser in the lead.
Geoffrey Chaucer
May 24th, 2009 5:59pm Report this commentRosa, you are quite right. A proper paragraph, three or four sentences, represents a proper thought with due support.
Proper paragraphs are notably absent from the BBC News website.
TGF UKIP
May 24th, 2009 6:40pm Report this commentBlimey, Fraser, and I thought hacks, like coppers were supposed to be observant.
I posted under my other nom-de-blog, Screwtape, for a few (very few) days two or three months back. Didn't feel right and I missed provoking all the spluttering the mention of UKIP provoked among the truly crazed Coffee House heirites so I reverted to being my true obnoxious self.
And if you really are that unobservant it's small wonder that you appear not to know whether or not Ed and Yvette paid CGT on their flipping.
Meanwhile, I comment as I observe and one of the reasons, quite appart from stylistic, that I'm such a big fan of your NoW pieces is that your view of Dave tends to be so much more robust for the Screws
Without combing back week over week I'll just cite the recent one starting "Stick a microphone in front of a Tory MP and he'll say David Cameron is a genius who'll save Britain's economy.
Put a row of GTs in front od the same MP and a different story will eventually come out."
Tiberius
May 24th, 2009 6:45pm Report this commentFraser, your doubts about Cameron being a successful future PM are quite consistent. Screwtape has at least that success to his name.
Verity
May 24th, 2009 7:00pm Report this commentBTW, Rosa, one of the most difficult jobs in the hacks' world is sports writing. Far from being thick jocks, they have to have a quick and vivid turn of phrase to bring a match, of which people already know the conclusion, to life.
The greatest boxing correspondent in the English language was Paul Gallico, who also used his acute sense of observation and descriptive turn of phrase to write best-selling books about ... cats.
This is just a little aside, for a Sunday.
Roger Thornhill
May 25th, 2009 5:33pm Report this commentI concur with the nods to Strapworld.
Even if Blears is shot politically in this parliament, there is no reason to suggest she would not form a part in the next (Blairite) Labour opposition. I find her never-ending stream of disingenuous political clap-trap irritating to say the least, but she has uses...as long as she holds on to her seat/butt.
@Fabio: Are you serious? Flint was consistently both non-sequitur and disingenuous. Par for the front bench course, natch. She comes across as a hectoring lightweight spewing out the party line. Ruth Kelly in drag she ain't.
hadrian
May 25th, 2009 6:18pm Report this commentBlears- a very capable and competant MP?!
Er, if that;s the long term response to the expenses scandal I for one will not be looking for anything except the old 'Plus ca change..' No wonder cynicism is so rife!
She and all the others on the take should be grilled and booted out.
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