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.

It was a silly question - as in flippant, light-hearted. Different from being an idiot. MN is a place for intelligent water-cooler chat. When significant public figures come on, the point is that they are there to join in our chat, and yes, a chance for us to ask matters of great weight and importance but also to test their willingness to participate in banter.

If he (or whoever was typing for him, call me an old cynic) had come back with a witty retort, or even just a "choc hob-nobs, next questions please" then no-one would have blinked. The point was that he didn't answer, then some bright spark in PR thought it would be a good idea days after the event to come up with an answer/send biscuits to MN - talk about shooting yourself in the foot and making an issue out of something that wasn't!

Blimely, it had completely passed me by that DM was so disliked here.... Must have been a doppleganger of mine then on the DM threads a while back.

I meant we are fair game as in sitting ducks.

Its fine to get cross about Ian Hislop, but not fine to assume that everybody agrees with the post.

i like the witty spontaneous interjections. like the biscuit

curiosity (hello), totally agree its just their pr teams so they can say they tried to engage etc etc and never going to actually change anything. but i was just miffed last night watching HIGNFY that mn got so sneered at which seemed unfair given that, alongside its marvellous lightheartness, it can be quite an interesting place.

unfortunately the dissing i'm getting here from some mnetters is because they can't seem to get past the BQ which is kind of what happened in the rest of the media!!

Your post was predicated on an assumption of agreement.

Why can't he take the piss out of Mumsnet? It is ripe with material for piss taking, biscuit question aside.

As is any pubic forum.

Flumpity, it has been pointed out that it is his job to do just that.

You thought he sneered? well, perhaps, but I think we came out of it quite well thanks to Sagan's response.

you poor widdle me tone is really unnecessary. just because you no likey the responses doesn't mean everyone is an idiot or incapable of dissecting the alleged subtleties of your post

Hm, SM, maybe we are just too stupid to understand the OP? Not being very bright and all. I should probably just leave MN and go to Netmums, much more likely to be my spiritual and intellectual home.

Hi flumpity! lol Try and forget about it. I sometimes get a feeling like that from HIGNFY, like you're laughing along and suddenly realise you're not welcome! lol read this article instead, completely off topic but rather funny.

Also when AIBU gets like this a good tactic is to blame being pregnant and sieve-brained/emotional and then run away! lol

Its the assumption that somehow we let ourselves down on the webchat that riles.

What, like snogging boys while still wearing your school uniform?

You cannot dictate how your public persona is experienced by the world, unless you own all the media available.

Sometimes is going to make you happy, sometimes its not.

Sneering at other mnetters and calling them silly and idiots because one tiny bit of engagement got picked up by a journo and then spread does you no favours when trying to argue that IH should not have sneered at Mumsnet.

Flumpity, the reason biscuits are being discussed is that in the OP you specifically mentioned That Question - and referred to the question poser as an idiot. Hindsight is great - if you had just left it as, "AIBU to feel annoyed that IH dismissed us as gossiping mums who only talk about biscuits" the thread would have had a totally different dynamic.

Heigh-ho, that's the way the cookie crumbles, so to speak...

Flumpity I was not the 'idiot' who asked the question and I can't remember who that poster is. I am still entitled to think that your OP is rude.

The only idiots are those in the national press who thought it newsworthy.

I thought it was a good question actually MadameDefarge, because it was one that he had to answer as a human being, rather than just churning out policy statements.

I think it was a bizarre question, noy remotely humourous or light hearted but I also think that IH is a horrible little man so I'm not sure if OP is BU or not.

As did I, a perfectly innocent lighthearted question...which only got mulled over and picked apart as the thread continued and he didn't answer that and more pertinent questions...and sort of summed up the dissatisfaction at soundbite replies which then got hijacked by the press, because it summed up very nicely a major problem many have with GB.

The obvious answer to this is to invite Mr Hislop on to MN for a webchat, then sit back and smirk as he realises we are not the bunch of milk addled mummies he so fondly imagines.

Indeed Slug, and has been suggested on another thread previous to this, which the OP did not read that discussed IH in depth.

Maybe he was thinking of Netmums? easy mistake to make for the uninitiated!

Ian Hislop takes the piss. That's his job.

He's not going to research in detail every issue to which he refers on HIGNFY.

I think people are being oversensitive about one throwaway comment, i.e. the 'young mums' thing.

I don't think it the biscuit question person was an 'idiot' - it was a tongue-in-cheek question.

Brown was never going to give you a proper answer about anything anyway, especially not the serious political questions. He only did it to make it look like he cares.

He only came out with a load of press-pack guff anyway, he was rubbish.

I remember him as having said that MN was an information exchange site for young mothers.

Given that Justine & Carrie state "so we had a simple idea: to build a much larger circle of parents sharing their know-how on the net.... Our philosophy is simple: To make parents' lives easier by pooling knowledge and experience." I don't think IH is far out. OK, maybe the demographics are a bit wider than 'young mums', but read what you will.

I thought we came out OK considering. You can't complain about being poked for asking the PM about biscuits then feel misjudged for political depth

And it really isn't HIGNFY to say "Those people on MN asked some really high-brow questions which were well answered, is it?

Be thankful that biscuits is all they could throw at us.

YANBU - i watched it with hubby and said hislop was being demeaning. Women make up 50% of the global population, we vote and we raise the next generation of children. Our voices have a right to be heard and taken seriously as much as the next person.

The point is really nothing to do with biscuits though is it or Mumsnet if it comes to that!

It is just Hislop having a go at the PM for his latest public relations exercise. What Hislop has failed to appreciate is that WE ARE VOTERS and we are raising the next generation of voters and therefore are an extremely important part of the PM's attempt to hang onto power constituency.

What irritates me is the fact that Ian Hislop thinks that 'young mums' are not worth listening to. For someone who considers himself as a cutting edge political thinker, he has a VERY narrow view of the role politics has to play in the everday lives of 'young mum's'.

X post stigaloid

'young mums' even

OP you are being terribly oversensitive about what Ian Hislop thinks of Mumsnet. I rather admire him and his work and would like to see him come on for a chat. It is laughable to think that he should have his finger on the pulse of something as relatively inconsequential as Mumsnet, really. I imagine he is quite a busy person. Why does it bother you so much?

On balance I would have preferred the biscuit question not to have been asked because of the consequence but, as someone else has said already here, hindsight is a wonderful thing. And Mumsnet has been portrayed in far worse light in the media, what with the Daily Mail schoolrun outfit/ lunchbox fiasco anyway.