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?

[paisleyleaf]

I expect it's hard to tell if there are new registrations because of publicity from this....or to get a chance to interview Will Young.

[JustineMumsnet]

Not sure why some think this wasn't a 'live' chat.... Was as live as any other chat tbh - the PM came, for a little more than the hour hour advertised and answered questions during that time. In fact, given that in this case there were not that many advance questions prepared in advance, it was rather more "live" than usual.

The difference was that the questions were grouped and shown to GB as opposed to him reading them off a screen - that was to do with 2 things: volume of questions and personal preference of our guest.

Am absolutely sure no hoodwinking going down.

[JustineMumsnet]

Oh and yes, sorry! of course Nick Clegg was on - he didn't actually come do it in the same room as us, so slipped my mind for a second there - apologies my mistake .

[AitchTwoToTangOh]

the live-ness is a red herring, because the man can't see. you might as well insist that someone using a wheelchair gets up to tapdance for us. he was there, he was answering questions, any fault tbh lies with his wonks for not knowing how to give good webchat.

[BecauseImWorthIt]

And, he arrived early/started to post early, which was a Good Thing. IMO it showed his willingness to get stuck in.

[AvrilH]

Aitch, are you calling MN towers Gordon Brown's wonks?



"wannabe" seems perfectly able to engage in good webchat without benefit of sight, so I think that is something of a red herring too

it does come across like he ignored the questions he did not want to answer, but doesn't everyone do that in a webchat? I'd love to know if the serious questions that were repeatedly asked e.g. house prices, actually were put to Gordon Brown

[AitchTwoToTangOh]

er, no. i'm calling his advisors, many of whom were present, wonks. they should have investigated the site and made sure that his posts were striking the right tone.

and wannabe is highly experienced at using her webchat software package, gb presumably isn't, unless he's a dadsnet regular and hasn't mentioned it.

if you seriously htink that in order to come on here the Prime Minister should have learned to use voice chat, and in so doing reveal to MNHQ and possibly the world the extent of his poor sight, you are absolutely off your head. it's something that he clearly does not wish to do, you'd force him into that just so that you could be sure he'd hear a question about biscuits?! ludicrous.

[AvrilH]

no, I just assumed that GB's assistants would be capable of doing at least as good a job as wannabe's software package

they should all have plenty of practice!!

I wasn't serious about calling MN admin wonks - but had the impression they were putting the grouped questions to him and relaying responses

[AitchTwoToTangOh]

i agree totally, that's why i think that they should have been better prepared, to know that he needed to come across charmingly and warmly etc.

re mnhq, whatever they did, it was up to the wonks to query as to whether it would show off their guy in the best light, and it was also up to them to change their minds if they felt is wasn't going well.

[AvrilH]

well said, aitch

[morningpaper]

I agree with Avril

FGS if we aren't even at the stage where someone with a disability can admit it, and find ways to overcome that so that s/he isn't at an unfair advantage, then that raises worrying questions

[AitchTwoToTangOh]

it really does, doesn't it? but however wrong, it's clearly something that would be used as a weakness, despite it imo showing more strength than anything else. people have already written pieces asking if he's fit enough for the job. look at ming campbell getting shufted off because he was too old, when i can say with some certainty that he is fitter than me.

[ABatDead]

The Biscuitgate question even made the Financial Times with two very funny pieces from Jim Pickard and Robert Shrimsley

"Could the real reason that the PM was unwilling to answer be because his favourite biscuits are Osbornes?"

[ABatDead]

To be honest, I read the first few pages of the 'chat' and it read a lot like a download of the party manifesto. It just didn't feel authentic so I didn't bother to read on.

I want to know what really makes polticians tick in their RL and what they really think about stuff that bothers me as a parent. All of them are parents after all.

However, I still hope the other party leaders still want to come on here and MNHQ persevere with this.

[policywonk]

I wonder whether the wonks just don't realise about chat rooms. They think it's just like going on t'radio or something - they don't realise that they are, in effect, coming in to someone else's space, and that they need to adapt their tone/behaviour accordingly. To be fair, they're running the country, they probably don't spend a lot of time in chat rooms.

[AitchTwoToTangOh]

i bet derek draper is someguy.

[MacaroonIncident]

no i bet derek draper is " lighters"

oh fgs we have gordon brown but we cant get Gok " just shove on some drivign gloves and a corset" Wan on.
the irony.

[VulpusinaWilfsuit]

noooo draper is still a labour man isn't he? someguy is all over the boards trying to persuade fascists to cross over from the Dark Side to the Light of UKIP

[Itsjustafleshwound]

Justine - perhaps there is a bit more understanding now about why people were so upset about the whole DM gate???

[AitchTwoToTangOh]

lol, is he?

[ABatDead]

The thing is that all political parties now have online strategies to ensure that opinion forming blogs, forums and news websites carry their views. It woudl be sensile for all politial parties to mnitor the views beig expressed on site sliek this to see what peole are worried about, what their reaction i to policy announcements, newspaper articles etc. It has been harnessed to good effect in the Obahma campaign and all parties wil no doubt be spending a lot of resource doing this in coming months. All parties will have also learned a lot from the 'biscuitgate' affair and be honing and modifying their web strategies as a result.

Sometimes they enlist supporters to ensure that supportive views are constantly being subliminally 'nudged' into the public conciousness via the these web channels.

However, it also makes sense for politicians to openly and overtly come here and in other online forums to present their views but it has to be done in the right way. As someone else said, it is not like a radio or TV interview. It is not even like one of those 'managed' public Q&A sessions or focus groups they run occassionally.

It is much more freewheeling and instant and has to be managed and interacted with in a different way.

[ABatDead]

...and apologies for my lousy typing.

[VulpusinaWilfsuit]

See. ABetaDad is Derek

Someguy is UKIP's very own astroturfer I reckon. Sorry for overuse of my new favourite word though

[AitchTwoToTangOh]

it was him i meant, funnily enough. they all look the same to me.