Further to my post yesterday, I think Keith Flett in today’s Guardian has a point, about Gordon Brown, the Guardian -and other papers’ – use of the Flint picture, and what he calls the ‘amalgam technique’ in politics. Below the full text of his letter today:

“As a socialist I have no time for the rightwing New Labour politics of Caroline Flint. But how she chooses to dress and appear is not directly part of that and should be entirely up to her. I understand that a politician like Gordon Brown, who still assesses people by how sober their suit is, doesn’t grasp this. I don’t expect the Guardian to illustrate a front-page article about Flint’s politics with a picture portrait that she did for Observer Woman in a quite different context. The amalgam technique in politics – connecting unconnected things by assertion – is not a helpful way of proceeding.”

Yes, that’s good.