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?
