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Biscuitgate and what it really tells us about the Gordon Brown and more importantly, the meedja

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JustineMumsnet · 22/10/2009 12:09

Hello all - hope you will forgive me a little rant about biscuits!

Yesterday Biscuitgate reached PMQs, with a jolly quip from David Cameron about the Prime Minister not being able to decide the biscuits for his bunker and thereby cemented its place in the folklore as a paradigm example of either Gordon Brown's indecisiveness or Gordon Brown's insincerity or Gordon Brown's cowardice, depending on your point of view.

Influential right-wing blogger Ian Dale gleefully penned Gordon Brown's Top 10 Ever Dithers and ranked Biscuitgate number three. Star political columnist Rachel Sylvester concluded in the Times: "It fits a pattern of dithering." The Sun screamed Jammie Dodger! and paraphrased MadameDefarge's tongue-in-cheek remark: "Maybe he's consulting advisers on the most vote-winning biscuit to admit liking." And Sam Leith in the Standard, bless him, said it was all Gordon's own fault for coming on Mumsnet anyway: "If the forums you choose for public engagement are Mumsnet and GMTV's sofa, rather than the Today programme and Newsnight, these are the sorts of questions you must expect to answer."

Now I can't say I often find myself feeling sorry for politicians but I have to admit to feeling more than a pang of sympathy for the PM over the past few days. Because the truth is that Gordon Brown didn't follow the live chat on the screen directly - he answered the questions grouped and fed to him by MNHQ and his advisors. He didn't avoid the biscuit question because it didn't cross his path (as I said on Radio 5 on the day, in fact).

Why did we do it that way? Well, there were so many questions and they were coming in thick and fast on every subject under the sun, so we reasoned that the most effective way of getting as much ground covered as possible was to group them together for him, rather than him answering random ones that he happened to notice.

We had a pile as long as your arm on subjects ranging from climate change to childcare vouchers to treatment of asylum seekers. After he'd covered a question he would immediately demand, "What next?" Occasionally, we'd squeeze in a light-hearted one - for example about what movies he wanted to see - but we were conscious of not merely focusing on frivolities. Fun as biscuits are, access to the Prime Minister is precious and we would have hated to waste time on Rich Tea Fingers at the expense of miscarriage or school starting age. Plus, of course, we'd rather not be seen as a soft touch in the GMTV sofa mould.

That's not to say Biscuitgate didn't reveal something about the Prime Minister. I strongly suspect that Mumsnetters resorted to asking about biscuits repeatedly towards the end of the chat because they were frustrated at being fed chunks of official policy rather than being engaged with directly. It's hard, of course, to keep up with the banter on a board like ours - particularly if you're not reading the actual chat and you're a Mumsnet virgin.

But the truth is it has come more naturally to other politicians to speak to and emotionally connect with Mumsnetters. That, I think, is a fair criticism of Gordon Brown, as is a a certain brusqueness, intermittently displayed during his visit. What is unfair is that Biscuitgate proves just how indecisive or insincere Gordon Brown is - he might be of course - what do I know? But there was absolutely nothing he did during his visit to Mumsnet Towers to suggest it.

In fact the real message of Biscuitgate is that whatever you do or say as a Prime Minister can and will be woven into any commentator's particular beef or agenda, in order to prove their point.
Who'd be a politician, eh?

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BecauseImWorthIt · 22/10/2009 12:14

Well said, Justine.

I was shocked to see that it was also in yesterday's Times Editorial.