Yvette cooper

I was always shocked by the level of vitriol among New Statesman and Guardian readers when a writer stepped away from the comfort zone of received wisdom and cuddly “I’m a nice person too” leftie-ness. Suggest that perhaps Hamas is anything other than a resistance movement or that people who vote Conservative might be people too and the sky falls in. Where the stock term of self-righteous abuse used to be “fascist” – remember Rick from the Young Ones? – it is now “neo-con”, which consigns the target  to the same ideological hell as George W. Bush. Since I’ve started this new blog I have not been called a neo-con. Instead, the insult

It’s perhaps a step too far to mix a reference from a popular work of 1980s satirical fiction with a phrase borrowed from baseball in the headline of this piece, but somehow it seemed to capture the situation. With increased speculation about Harriet Harman’s leadership ambitions the time has come for the younger generation of Labour politicians (most of whom are a simillar age to Sue Townsend’s hero) to start sticking their heads aboove the parapet. A name that seems to be emerging as a possible runner is Treasury minister Yvette Cooper. I have often wondered whether we would ever see a husband and wife team in No. 10 and No.