to find Ian Hislop's snotty comments on HIGNFY about mumsnet being 'a website for young mums' who wasted the PM's time asking about biscuits, rather patronising.

[Flumpity]

whilst i quite agree that it was pretty silly for whoever asked the PM about his favourite biscuits when he came on for the webchat the other day, it still annoyed me that ian hislop (who has clearly never visited mumsnet) focussed only on that one silly question, and made a great point about what a ridiculous waste of the PM's time coming onto a 'young mums' lightweight website was.

I'm not saying the PM's chat was much good - it wasn't - he just trottted out stock soundbites, BUT it is irritating to have a huge community of mostly intelligent debating women written off by smug mr Hislop as a pointless waste of time, purely because one idiot asked the PM about his favourite biscuits.

shame because i usually like Ian and Have I Got News for You.

cornsilk, did you post the biscuit question? can't figure why you're so venomous at me for saying it was a bit of an idiotic question. it wasn't the main point of my OP and i wish i'd not used the work because it has hijacked your and SM's focus which is a shame. i was genuinely interested to see what people thought about IH's sneering at mumsnet rather than about the choice of wording in my OP. I shall be very careful and only use bland words in any AIBU posts in future so as not to arouse your wrath and have it take over the thread.

word not work! typo (before you shout at me about that)

you posted daft post and now complaining at responses?diddums

not complaining at all. just curious at your tone. but it takes all sorts eh. don't think my OP was daft - less daft than a biscuit question anyway

ends.

difference is hislop is witty.op isn't
and he didn't call anyone an idiot

Ian Hislop sneers at web forum for mothers shocker. He sneers at everything. That's his job.

Or did he just unveil a hitherto unexposed contempt of women? Think its a matter of public record.

And for your information, I went on the webchat to ask a question and enjoy it. My serious question went unanswered, because it was beyond him to answer it...so the biscuit one substituded quite nicely. And it was fun. And very MN.

Quite why you are complaining so loudly about one particular aspect of the media representing MN as fluffy and pointless when Mn is quoted almost daily in the the Daily Mail is beyond me.

Would you prefer an MN debating Society which you can only join if you promise to be really serious all the time? They could represent MN on "serious" webchats, and make sure no sneaky pranksters waste all that precious webspace getting vital policy updates from politicians. Because it was so valuable for us.

Really, it was a PR exercise to try and endear himself to a represented section of the electorate. So if we demand biscuit info, he should have been given the opportunity to reply - because that would have been more of a vote winner.

Dittany, as in my past post (deep in the post)

We get dissed everyday in the DM. We are fair game.

Flumpity was predicating her entire post on an assumed agreement with her stance, that it was silly to ask the question.

I do not agree. Nor does SM, and several others. So clearly going to get a dispute.

thing is, on that programme, if it happened and it's laughable, they will leap on it. It's their job. If no one had asked the silly question, they wouldn't have been able to leap on it. No good crying over stuff that actually did happen. OK it's not representative - but it still happened

That programme is a comedy programme it is not about researching in detail and providing a balanced view!

ha ha! I'm 39. I'm outraged at being called a young mum!

So who said the "that's the cringiest thing I've ever read Gordon" comment?

tbh MN has had worse media coverage than this.moldies was risible

Sagan said it...and he deserved it.

When this has all died down, it will be good for MN, its great coverage.

If I were doing their PR I would be dancing around the office swigging champagne.

think they do that anyhoo.all the MN towers bonhomie

And for the last time, it wasn't a silly question. It was a lighthearted one. Same as the one asking about taking his kids to the cinema...see that hasn't got folk all riled about less than serious questions....and also didn't make pmq...

It just happened to be perfect media fodder as this particular moment in time...no one could predict it and no one is to "blame"

given the plethora of topics discussed on MN thought it was light hearted interjection

shame on you, SM, are you implying MNHQ is not an incredibly highbrow and serious place to work in?

It wasn't a silly question? oh fgs. Of course it was silly to ask that of the PM when you have a once in a lifetime, probably, chance of his 'ear'

fgs

once in a life time chance?for millionth time don't exaggerate

I don't know whether to laugh or cry at the idea a webchat on MN would have any impact at all on government policy. And he did get over 500 questions, of which a handful were lighthearted twitting.

Would love those headlines'

"Gordon Brown has Damascene policy epiphany on webchat"

Yeah, right.

Ian Hislop's got a rather limited experience of MN (and I suspect the whole world), you couldn't expect him to know what he was talking about.

It's annoying to be presented this way however, particularly when I asked Ed Balls a rather pertinent question a few weeks ago which he answered rather demeaningly and, rather insultingly, clearly didn't actually read. He has since failed to answer the same question via e-mail or post.

We are foolish if we believe any of the politician's motives for coming on MN are anything other than advisor led approval ratings boosting. In my mind that makes them deserve to have their time wasted by being asked about biscuits especially if they aren't willing to answer any proper questions or answer questions properly. This was certainly true where Ed Balls was concerned, I don't know how GB did.

doesn't look like madamedefarge has read this thread. tsk tsk.

not about biscuits. was about IH appearing to write off mumsnet as 'only' about biscuits.

but then...

no one had PM ear.was well orchestrated webchat.unlikely that policies or point of view will change as result