Lucas, Leonard or Wings? The award for the biggest political clown goes to...
Clowns from across the political spectrum have been putting on quite a show of late, writes Laura Waddell
Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right – no it’s not the Edinburgh Festival Fringe I’m talking about, but bad ideas springing up left, right, and centre of politics. Grab a drink, make yourselves comfortable, and welcome to silly season.
If I was handed a flyer with Caroline Lucas’s proposal to sort out Brexit with an all-woman Cabinet, it would go straight in the nearest bin, a gesture towards recycling the Greens might appreciate. But do members, or anyone at all who might be sympathetic in the polling booth, remotely desire a centrist Cabinet balanced between senior women from each political party (yet somehow leaving out Shadow Home Secretary Dianne Abbot)? With such a by-the-numbers approach to its composition, this fantasy coalition Cabinet would be meaningless in its wider ideological pursuits, and unlikely to grant the Greens much influence. Sure, it’s out-of-the-box thinking at a time we need new ideas, but of the kind that should hit the wastebasket at brainstorming stage before a credible idea actually comes along.
Women are often elevated to leading roles when that role is at its least desirable. It was true in the case of May, and has been observed in the corporate world too. We know that responsibility for domestic duties, even in households with two working parents, falls disproportionately to women. But who wants a Cabinet to reflect the drudgery of cleaning up other people’s messes?
There are some good politicians among those contacted by Lucas and some I’d like to see in the real Cabinet, but the principle itself just doesn’t hold up. Besides the logistical insubstantiality, Lucas’s plan overlooks the glaring fact that some women in politics can be as conniving,
warmongering and malevolent as any man, and many backed Brexit. If we need a stark reminder, certainly I’ll never forget a grinning Kate Hoey sailing down the Thames with Nigel Farage, like a lost scene from Dante’s Inferno reimagined by an am-dram troupe on course for making a loss. All-women teams are contentious even on The Apprentice, and this isn’t entertainment, although I would be curious about what team name they’d pick.
This week blogger Wings over Scotland, aka Stuart Campbell, denied former First Minister Alex Salmond was involved in the creation of a potential new pro-independence political party, which might differ from the SNP on some populist issues.
If it can funnel off support by whipping up outrage among lingering Salmondites whose allegiances have never been transferred to Sturgeon, I imagine the party at large would be delighted to throw out a few babies with the bathwater.
Meanwhile, in the seven-andunder tent, Scottish Labour MPS have been playing in, out, in, out, shake it all about in a PR war with the UK office. As will be ever the case while he’s in charge, some of the schism following John Mcdonnell’s comments on not standing in the way of an independence referendum can be traced along the lines of Jeremy Corbyn’s clearest supporters and detractors. The spat rolled on for days last week – just when we imagined it had run empty, new contrary statements were pulled out of a bottomless hat and it’ll be a while before any dove of peace appears.
Walthamstow MP Stella Creasy took the opportunity to disagree with head office, tweeting after Mcdonnell’s comments blew up, “Egalitarian devolution isn’t about