UK Politics
Hattie's cold calls backfire
Published 05 June 2008
All the gossip from the Westminster Village
Brrng, brrng. The Supreme Leader isn't alone in making nuisance calls. Hattie Harperson has taken, I hear, to ringing Labour activists to discover how they rate her. Predictably, it's not going well. Hattie's a terribly busy multitasker, wearing all those hats as deputy leader, party chair, Leader of the Commons, Crewe by-election critic blessed with 20-20 hindsight, etc, so she's less time on her hands than the Prime Minister, and the heavy dialling's delegated to a loyal bank of Harmanites. A disgruntled local official in the Black Country, summoned from his bath a second time by a cold call, complained to his MP. The party stalwart ended his moan with the telling inquiry: "And anyway, who is this Harriet Harman supposed to be?" A good question, sir, a very good question.
An election two years off is a political marathon not a sprint, so George "Oik" Osborne has joined the Commons gym. The spindly-legged Trust-fund Tory's worried about the majority spreading across his waistline. My breathless snout on the treadmill reports Oik looks unhealthily pale in skimpy shorts and T-shirt. You'd have thought the heir to a baronetcy could pay someone to run for him.
For Uncle Gordie, a little ray of sunshine in the Unite back-room boy Ray Collins, the shortlist of one for the most unwanted job in British politics - that of Labour Party generalissimo. Collins's claim that he'd prefer a contest to a coronation suggests the union fixer possesses the sense of the absurd required to be can-carrier-in-chief. The new general secretary's first public outing will be to oversee this autumn's Manchester bloodbath. Organisers have brought forward the start to Saturday but are to leave Brown's speech on Tuesday afternoon. Shifting the lecture to the final session on Wednesday would invite unflattering comparisons with a Druggie Dave who can walk and talk at the same time.
Tearoom talk's of a whip-round to raise £64 to keep Central Ayrshire's bolshie Brian Donohoe out of court over a faulty fridge freezer. To be sued for an unpaid bill shouldn't trigger bankruptcy or a by-election. But it mightn't be a fair cop: Donohoe moonlights as a special constable.
So farewell the other Phil Collins, ditched by ruthlessly ambitious James Purnell within weeks of this column revealing that the Work Harder Secretary had used the bitter Blairite and one-time No 10 inmate to burnish his leadership credentials. Jim Boy's now accusing Filthy Phil of overegging his role. That sounds a bit rich coming from the cabinet Zelig, who was painted into a hospital photograph when he was miles away.
Kevin Maguire is associate editor (politics) of the Daily Mirror
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