Thursday, May 29, 2008

How to Feel Safe With Jacqui Smith

The Today Programme's paper review this morning started off with a reference to Home Secretary Jacqui Smith's interview with the Mirror which contains the following nugget...

"Asked if she finds any fellow MPs dishy, she replies with a hearty laugh, "Yes! Most of my cabinet colleagues, and especially the Prime Minister." So could she ever fancy a Tory? "No!"

If you wonder why Tory MPs are looking rather disconsolate this morning, now you know. Mind you, the backbench hecklers will no doubt have been given some further ammunition for schoolboy humour following this revelation...

"And there's another bugbear - criticism over her wardrobe and especially those low-cut tops. "Get over it, I say. Get. Over. It!" Counters Jacqui. "Apparently there's a running joke on TV's Headcases that the level of security threat in this country is determined by how high or low my top is. My husband has taken to looking at my chest every morning and saying, 'I feel safe today'. Or 'I feel less safe'.

Oh dear, why is it that I feel she may live to regret those words? Seriously, it is a sign of the times that these words were made during a full page interview about knife crime, which would have probably sunk without any comment had she not made these remarks. It's almost impossible for politicians to get noticed, or rather their views to get noticed, unless they lace an interview with comments like this. Her interview would certainly not have made the Today Programme paper review, I suspect.

There are double standards at play too. Imagine a male Tory Shadow Minister saying that he fancied most female Tory MPs. Then imagine the likes of Harriet Harman reacting to it. "Same, nasty sexist Tory Party," she'd no doubt say. Yet a female MP can say things like this and people are amused by it.

Double D 'T' shirt anyone?

45 comments:

  1. Asked if she finds any fellow MPs dishy, she replies with a hearty laugh, "Yes! Most of my cabinet colleagues, and especially the Prime Minister

    Harriet Harman
    Ruth Kelly
    Hazel Blears
    Baroness Ashton
    Yvette cooper
    Tessa Jowell
    Caroline Flint
    Beverley Hughes
    Baroness Scotland

    Is she a Gayer?

    ReplyDelete
  2. 'It's almost impossible for politicians to get noticed, or rather their views to get noticed'.. Denis Macshane got noticed the other day without mentioning low cut tops.. I suspect it's more to do with the credibility of the speaker. Jacqui Smith has none.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Her comments bring dishonour on her office. Sexist or not she should set a better standard.

    The signs, maybe of a demob happy minister on her way out.

    ReplyDelete
  4. All 'Right' thinking people should sign this petition, 'NOW'

    http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/SaveOurSoho/

    Against Boris's alcohol ban!!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I noticed Heart of Flint serving similar guff in ‘You asked the question s ‘( Indy) , .She deflected the dishy MP question with ,‘ So many to choose from’, but dribbled on about her clothes for the girls . This is automaton MPs pretending to be ‘people’ isn’t it. It is also de rigeur for male ‘members’ to follow football , Brown can`t even see the pitch.
    Flinty was less impressed when Conservative Home decided she was the sexiest MP,and fulminating about the adolescent Conservatives , adding no end to the longeur of the nation.
    The other day there was a legal ruling that starting at a woman’s bare breasts was harassment but staring at a man’s chest is not . Why? I, for example, am a bronzed demi god , licensed to thrill, semi clad .

    Iain and Flinty were University contemporaries , ....together they could have proved that love truly does conquer all but love did not blossom as far as I know .’He was gay Tory but he won her heart ....’

    If anyone remembers the days of the “Order of the Brown nose “ which was at the time of the Brown bounce Oona King claimed that listening to Gordon Brown declaiming on the economy was better than sex with her husband .
    Are they divorced yet?

    ReplyDelete
  6. What a load of crap Iain. Who said the interview was "about knife crime" and who was it put the banter questions? The Mirror. Would they have put them to a male Tory Shadow Minister? Er, no.

    Get over it Iain, I say. get. Over. It.

    "j my dd" is the word verification btw.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I would pay good money NOT to see her lez up with the above.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Depending on how low cut those tops are there does seem quite a bit to get over...

    ReplyDelete
  9. Is she a Gayer

    Even a hard up dyke stranded on a desert island would surely struggle to find the attraction in the chipmunk though.

    Then again, if you put her next to Cherie Booth you may see Blears in a different light I suppose.

    ReplyDelete
  10. There was that similar nonsense about the underwear choices of Tory leadership seeking MPs a while back.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Sadly I don't think her cabinet colleagues would accept her lusty approaches, or would they?

    "Come here, Darling...."

    Oh, the horror.

    *shudder*

    ReplyDelete
  12. Yeah, Iain, as you say if a Tory had made those comments then double-standards would come out to play.

    These women ministers who defend their actions and decisions by saying 'I'm a woman' do the rest of the women who ARE intelligent a great disservice.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Can you tell me where your grovelling apology blogged by Chris Paul is please Iain? I won't believe it until I see it with my own eyes.

    ReplyDelete
  14. I would feel a lot safer with Jacks and Gordie if they did *one* thing for me...

    ReplyDelete
  15. Chill out Iain ! Don't have a chip on your shoulder about the I'm backing DD thing - that was in the past and life is too short to be bitter..

    We need a bit of a sense of humour in politics to act as an anti-dote to Gordan Brown..

    ReplyDelete
  16. This woman is the Home Secretary?

    ReplyDelete
  17. I don't want to feel safe with Jacqui Smith.

    I just want to feel safe from Jacqui Smith.

    Why does this moronic bint even bother to respond to The Mirror's asinine claptrap? Is it because The Mirror is the only newspaper (advisedly!) left in the whole world which will print anything favourable about NuLab?

    ReplyDelete
  18. All you can say is that Smith doesn't take her public image that seriously. Her policies, which stink, count, not her fashion sense.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Dean said...

    "a hard up dyke"

    Sex change incomplete - op cancelled due to power cuts?

    In contrast to Flint's approach, I'm surprised des hasn't made an appearance to chide the Tories for not having enough women MPs for a male shadow minister to "choose from".

    ReplyDelete
  20. Do Tory MPs think she's a bit of a looker or something? Last time I looked she was a complete minger. Nadine Dorries on the other hand...

    ReplyDelete
  21. This is more cynical manipulation from one of the most cynical and manipulative of the Labour team. Jacqui Smith has nothing but innuendo to sell - so she sells that. The low cut tops are a calculated ploy from a very calculating human being. As is the absurd effort to make out that the Labour front bench is sexier than the Tory front bench. Gordon himself is pretty obsessed with promoting a reputation for being fanciable. There were a series of embarrassing BBC articles about how sexy this (deeply unsexy) man is during the Brown 'bounce'. Jacqui Smith is pandering to his ego - and trying to get attention the only way she seems to know how.

    ReplyDelete
  22. I knew she was thick I didn't know she was undignified as well.

    Wasn't she a schoolteacher at one time? You've done a public service, Ian and if she was a school teacher pushed more towards private education.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Unrelated, but did you catch this story, Iain...

    Labour rules apparently don't allow Mayors to stand for a 3rd term, so the Mayor of Doncaster was expelled for trying to stand under a new banner.

    Funny how those rules didn't apply to Ken?! Funnier still that when Boris asked Hazel Blears to legislate against Mayors standing for more than 2 terms, she said it wasn't very democratic and there was no problem if people wanted to vote Mayors in for a third term.

    ReplyDelete
  24. So you're angry at Smith's rhetoric are you Iain? How sexist, you say, as you focus exclusively on the sexy aspects of the interview. Why not go the whole hog and put a photo of her cleavage next to your hypocritical article?

    Better yet, address what it was she was really being interviewed about - knife crime - or is the Tory policy of increased stop and search either too controversial or similar to the Government's to bother about?

    ReplyDelete
  25. There have never been more women Labour MPs or women in the cabinet. And look at them!

    Very significant that there has never been such a useless and pathetic PLP or cabinet. Completely over-promoted BECAUSE they are women.

    ReplyDelete
  26. I gather there is likely to be BNP Mayor in Stoke.

    ReplyDelete
  27. Brown can 'magic' Baps into Currant-Buns but don't think that holds for breasts.

    ReplyDelete
  28. My late Mother would have called her "blousy" and that was no compliment on her as a lady of substance!

    ReplyDelete
  29. It's easy to see why women tumble before Gordon's charms.

    Here's a link to photo in which his face looks rather like the tumescent rear end of an amorous chimp.

    http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/739516/the-new-landscape.thtml

    ReplyDelete
  30. Did you actually read my article beofre you wrote that codswallop? My point was that the Today programme highlighted her cleavage comments rather than the substantive issue. And that it seems Ok for a female politician to talk about fancy male politicians, but if a male politician spoke in such terms people like you would jump down on them like a ton of bricks.

    ReplyDelete
  31. God, what a slag.

    ReplyDelete
  32. Harriet Harman
    Anon 8.45 AM said:

    Ruth Kelly
    Hazel Blears
    Baroness Ashton
    Yvette cooper
    Tessa Jowell
    Caroline Flint
    Beverley Hughes
    Baroness Scotland

    Is she a Gayer?



    Nope, I think she's just a raging sexist who thinks that females don't really count as ministers.

    What stinking hypocrisy.

    Jacqui Smith and her government hound us, even threatening, frail and confused elderly pensioners, for our alleged our non-PC and discriminatory behaviour.

    Yet as Ms Smith demonstrates, so called Government ministers like her are the most non-PC and discriminatory wretches of all!

    And how dare she demean women by getting ancient her t*ts out to throw a smoke screen around what a total incompetent she is.

    Oooooooooooooooh! I so detest this woman and nulab. Please, please, David Cameron, get this pathetic apology for a government out soon.

    ReplyDelete
  33. Are you saying that male MP`s should be able to drool lasciviously with impunity or that female ones should not? The former I hope .

    I was agog to see what you made of Moonbat`s citizens arrest of Bolton for war crimes at the Hay Literary festival ,or the rise of the BNP in Stoke. I don’t think the Sir Dale has sallied forth on the subject of Labour’s bankruptcy either which is intriguing especially the sudden disinclination for anyone to be personally liable.
    Do I understand it correctly that some of the artificial loans might have to be paid back , which , I take it was not the intention .


    The nation awaits the wise words of Dale without whose guidance we are but empty vessels ( well I am )

    Nag nag nag

    ReplyDelete
  34. She finds the PM especially dishy!!!!!!
    Perhaps she is trying to curry favour with him, as erm.. Curry did with Major..

    ReplyDelete
  35. Iain, of course the latest 'anonymous' comments are a bile [correction: pile ;)] of crap.
    But you continue to let this happen here.
    You don't want the "codswallop", do something about it.
    You do know how, you blogging expert you.

    ReplyDelete
  36. One of the blokes in the tea room has a word for her and her cronies:

    He/she is a Bollocksmeister or whatever the German is for the female version.

    ReplyDelete
  37. A cheap and shallow treatment by the Today programme; a cheap and shallow Home Secretary.

    Do we really need to be more depressed?

    ReplyDelete
  38. These people never left uni, did they? Still the smarty-pants,infantile, inyerface joking about.

    ReplyDelete
  39. When Boris gets towards the end of his second term the labour wimmin will all be screaming for a two term limit.

    ReplyDelete
  40. You and me both, Aunty Flo' but it's not going to be much different when Cameron gets in. Some cosmetic changes, but the same of old lefty toxins.

    Yes, why doesn't Iain have anything up about Moonbat's 'citizen's arrest' of Mr Bolton? Is this even in British law? It's an American right, in the Constitution. Have the British adopted it?

    ReplyDelete
  41. Call me shallow, but I just don't think Jacqui is a suitable name for a Home Secretary.

    ReplyDelete
  42. "Harriet Harman
    Ruth Kelly
    Hazel Blears
    Baroness Ashton
    Yvette cooper
    Tessa Jowell
    Caroline Flint
    Beverley Hughes
    Baroness Scotland"

    I am in pedantic mode I am, afraid but Jowell Flint Hughes and Scotland are not in the Cabinet.

    Its true that Flint does walk down Downing St every Tuesday but that's only to flash her briefs at the cameramen - she is not actually in the actual cabinet, er, actually.

    Perhaps we should add Hilary Benn to the list.
    Otherwise I cannot add anything useful to this thread - except to point out to some quarters that the point of the web is its diversity, its attention to minutiae. Its magpie tendency.

    ReplyDelete
  43. The sooner they go back to sqabbling in the queue at Tesco the better for all of us.

    Jaqui Smith
    Harriet Harman
    Ruth Kelly
    Hazel Blears
    Baroness Ashton
    Yvette cooper
    Tessa Jowell
    Caroline Flint
    Beverley Hughes
    Baroness Scotland

    ps, cheers Jaqui, sexism being back on the 'to do' list.

    ReplyDelete
  44. What a pathetically bigoted typically Labour thing to say: "i could never fancy a Tory". Maybe, as a Conservative, i might find it hard living with a left wing firebrand, but it doesn't mean to say I can't have friends of all political colours, within reason - as in i might struggle to break bread with people who justify terrorism, or wish ill on others. I once had a girlfriend whose mother i got on great with, until she found out where my political allegiances sat. Apart from the fact we agreed on so much, that was it - i was a Tory, and her family were historically Labour, and "we can't have a Tory in the family, grandad would turn in his grave". It's fair to say I felt my life would be much more enriched without such narrow minded people.
    Anyway, the Mirror and Jacqui Smith deserve each other - they are both no more than laughing stocks!

    ReplyDelete