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

[JustineMumsnet]

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?

[morningpaper]

You wouldn't want your jumbojet pilot to be all warm and friendly and wandering around nibbling gaily on biscuits when he is supposed to be flying the damn plane

[morningpaper]

lol Aitch

and ermmmm ... other premiers... you know... scarier ones with secret bombs and shit

[preciouslillywhite]

well said Justine

I'm not an apologist for GB, although probably a pretty typical labour voter , but I was horrified by the media response to this- it was doubly unfair, both to GB and to mn.

If we get the press we deserve, then this is truly a nation of arseholes twats fucking morons idiots

hmmph

[Slubberdegullion]

I want less image and more substance please.

In fact the perfect answer to the biscuit question would have been a terse 'I only eat freeze dried food heated up with warm water out of the tap. NEXT QUESTION.'

[morningpaper]

You are right Slubber: "Biscuit? If it doesn't come in IV form while I sleep, I am not interested"

[preciouslillywhite]

...but Alistair Campbell???

[bossykate]

LOL - when he said Sarah was busier than he was, i thought, i blimmin well hope NOT! OK mothers work hard but you are the PRIME MINISTER

[Twit]

Biscuitgate has revealed to us just how much the truth of a situation can be reduced down to a nonsense.
There were loads of really incisive, clever questions to be read, quoted and commented on, but the media and opposition alike have jumped on the one question (that we now realise he didn't even see)that was more jokey and (sorry) irrelevant.
It is not only unfair to him, but to us as well.

Each and every time some -one uses biscuitgate as an argument or example towards Mr Brown they are also letting every one know just what they think of women (mothers in particular). They have 'put us in our place', back in the kitchen, unable to come up with anything other than what type of snack some-one might like.
At least we know who the sexist arrogant arseholes public figures are now, I wonder if they realise it could swing people away from voting for them or those they write for support..

[Slubberdegullion]

lol mp.

[MayorNaze]

has anyone seen the PM sketch on armstrong and miller? PM marching brusquely along followed by an entourage firing random questions at him?

that's the image i have in mind of the Gordon Brown mn webchat...

[FlameHasAnotherChick]

why haven't you mentioned all this before now though?

[paisleyleaf]

I feel a bit sorry if his visit here has caused him all this.
But if right wing bloggers and paper columns are picking on this, I don't think he looks so bad.
(oatcakes! tut)

Future webchat guests will be getting it straight what their fave biscuit is before they come on from now on.

[paisleyleaf]

But you're right Twit, it makes mothers look bad.

[CowWatcher]

Thanks for the clarification Justine. I agree with all who say that the real scandal of this is the inherent sexism and lazy journalism shown by the media response that assumed that all we askeed him was inane questions about biscuits. The great majority of questions were intelligent, well thought through & impressive. (Such that I felt it unnecessary to post any of my own.)

[ZephirineDrouhin]

Absolutely agree with Twit and bossykate. This whole episode has been utterly depressing, and has revealed a shockingly casual contempt in the media both for women and for anything close to factual reporting.

[MadameDefarge]

Oh dear, feeling a tad guilty now.

I think now we know that a webchat like that does not work in the way we thought it does, ie, that he read and responds to what he sees on the screen, we can make allowances for non answering of fluffy questions.

I don't think any of us wanted him to do badly, and but I do think we justified in calling him on trotting out policy verbatim...

I think the reason that was picked up on was that is was, inadvertantly, a neat encapsulation of what many feel to be his weakness...

It just chimed with the political zeitgeist...

[Bleh]

Has MN thought of releasing an official statement to the press, clarifying events? so that Budgie face Cameron can be made to look more of an idiot.

I wonder, if BiscuitGate had not occurred, and only serious questions asked and answered, if GB's foray into MN had gotten any media coverage at all? Doubt it. Where's the fun in writing "The Prime Minister was asked probing and insightful questions by the users of MN. And responded well". Not nearly as much fun as "Dithering PM couldn't ask fluffy biscuit questions posed by dim women".

[WhatFreshBLOODIsThis]

Thanks for this Justine, personally I am also aghast at how the media has jumped on the sodding biscuit question at the expense of all other topics.

But then I remember when the debate on cut off dates for late term abortions was happening in the Commons, how the standard of debate on the MN thread about it was so far above the juvenile point scoring and emotional blackmail going on in the House.

This site has an amazing range of people who can and do express their views in reasoned, in-depth and well informed ways and personally I am deeply insulted at the media reducing us to a bunch of women getting in a flap about biscuits.

Misogyny alive and well, no surprises there then

[ILikeToQuickstepItTangoIt]

Why is it only now that it comes out that the biscuit question was never put to GB?

Is it a case of any publicity is good publicity? For MN that is, not GB.

[pollycazalet]

I don't understand why it's taken so long for you to explain this Justine.

This story has been running for days - have you not had any opportunity to clarify with journalists what actually happened? Or have you done so and they have ignored it because it didn't suit their agenda?

[cherryblossoms]

Thanks Justine.

I'm depressed about the media coverage - and angry. It's insulting on many levels. How has the media turned into this ridiculous thing? Is it our (the readers') fault?

And, seriously, the long-term effect is just to increase the "management" of all mediated interactions with the public by public figures and all information released.

It doesn't augur well for openness or any kind of "adulthood" in the way that the public are treated.

MD - don't feel bad. I still think it was v. mn to put that questions. What is crazy, utterly crazy, is how it's been picked up and what has been made of it.

[VulpusinaWilfsuit]

And Sam Leith, for example, is a twat.

[wilbur]

Thanks Justine. I was also deeply depressed when I heard PMQ yesterday - a very cheap and utterly pointless shot, I thought. I'd like one of the sneery journos who have been running this story to come on and have a webchat to see how much they know about the other questions we asked.

[VulpusinaWilfsuit]

Yes to the idea of a co-ordinated press/radio response.

Get Woman's Hour, Martha Kearney/Emily Maitlis and some broadsheet feminist (are there any?) on to it immediately!