Melissa Benn

For the moment, I am only going to set out a couple of questions currently buzzing round my brain about the Caroline Flint affair, in particular the matter of those photos coupled with her angry comment that Gordon Brown used her and other women in the Cabinet as ‘window dressing.’

Yesterday I had at least two spats with friends and family about whether her agreeing to that Observer photo shoot fatally undermined her political credibility; everyone I spoke to was adamant; of course it did. She draped herself over a chaise longue, showed a lot of leg, put on scarlet lippy etc And then asks to be treated as a serious person!

Personally, I think agreeing to do a photo shoot like that, in scarlet silk Karen Millen and matching lipstick, is a risky thing to do. And, although she could not have known it, the timing could not have been worse from her point of view; those Observer photos were a dream for every single newspaper. Window dressing, what window dressing??

But I still have a question: Why does a woman who chooses to display her beauty and femininity in a national newspaper automatically disqualify herself from serious consideration? Was it perhaps the posing, rather than the clothes, hair, lipstick? The self display? Yes, that may be it. Even so, there is something cheap and tawdry and just too easy about the automatic dismissal of Flint on account of those photos. Isn’t the underlying message of the attacks on/dismissal of Flint that sex/women and politics/seriousness just don’t mix. Also, bear in mind that any woman who ISN’T deemed attractive gets it in the neck as well.

Am I wrong?

Of one thing I am sure; you cannot praise the Prime Minister to the skies in the evening and then launch an all out attack on him the next day. Better to do neither but simply make a decision – stay or leave – and stick by it.

For the past few days I have been ill with spring flu of the non swine variety, the illness that has affected so many in recent weeks, including, so I read in today’s coverage of the Cannes film festival, the actress Penelope Cruz whom I find it impossible to imagine looking anything other than gorgeous. Anyway, as befits the thought processes of someone with a fever, dizziness, cough etc but the continuing domestic tasks of a mother of two, including a fifteen year old taking triple science GCSE papers, let me tell you what has been on my mind these past few days:

* Ida, the forty seven million year old fossil, with its milk teeth and broken hand, found at the bottom of a volcanic Italian pit in the early eighties and sold to a tenacious scientist with a flair for publicity who has put his findings up on a free website, to further public understanding. I am particularly interested in Ida because, when helping my fifteen year old with her biology revision, we did quite a bit on fossils and what they reveal of our ancestry. The thing I find most amazing is that homo sapiens, who follows homo habilis and home erectus ( apologies to the exam board if I remember this in the wrong order) is only about two hundred thousand years old but the marmoset monkey has long been established as thirty million years old. Extraordinary.

* Michael Martin, the first speaker of the House of Commons to be forced out of office for three hundred years ( the last one was found guilty of financial corruption.) Martin is clearly a scapegoat who has also made many mistakes and misjudged the mood of the essentially upper class workplace he was supposed to preside over. But contrary to the mood of my last post, I am now finding the speed with which the parliamentary system is unravelling rather exciting. Could it lead to the wiping away of all the pomp and pretension and patriarchy of both the Commons and the Lords and lead to not one but two modernised elected chambers?And might we see a host of new representatives offer themselves for election. And I don’t mean Esther Rantzen……

* on the subject of new political representatives, and this is definitely the effect of fever, I have actually been wondering for the first time in my life what it would be like to stand as an MP, now that I am in proud middle age and pretty clear about what I believe and the changes I would like to see. Given my parentage/family background etc I am often asked why I did not go into politics – well, they have to ask writers something – and I have never been in the remotest sense tempted. But flu has brought out new imaginings in me, and in many others, judging by the messages I am getting from other mid life friends who say ( of themselves, not me): if not now, when?

* Nicholas Moseley, whom I am currently researching; the writer son of fascist Oswald and his half brother the equally infamous Max ( whom I admire solely for taking on the tabloids rather than bowing sheepishly to them) I am going to interview Nicholas in a week or so. Now, there’s a difficult inheritance, yet as the writer of many books including Accident ( made into a terrific film with Dirk Bogarde) and Hopeful Monsters ( which won the Whitbread in 1990) Nicholas has at least managed to carve out a life for himself separate from his infamous father.

Apart from these disordered thoughts, I have about twelve books lined up to read, and one huge tome still to finish. So far this week I have only been able to manage DVD’s in the afternoon, lying under a scratchy tartan blanket.My final observation then is that Jane Austen is perfect for flu. I have re-visited Sense and Sensibility ( brilliantly acted by all the A list of Brit cinema, including Alan Rickman, Emma Thompson – who also wrote the script – Kate Winslet, Hugh Grant etc ) and Pride and Prejudice ( again fine performances from all the cast.)

So that’s the end of my report from the groggy front line. Finally, let me repay the compliment to Normblog, the supremely talented blogger, who increased my hit rates and blogging self confidence on what would otherwise have been a supremely sluggish day.

Ever thought of standing for Parliament Norm?

For the first time in my life, I am worried for the future of our democracy. As the expenses crisis deepens, here are a few observations.

* while MP’s from all parties have been ‘ caught out’ by careless accounting and unjustified claims, I was particularly outraged by money claimed to dredge a moat, fix piping under a tennis court and trim wisteria on a country cottage.

* I don’t want to see political leaders playing at being very angry, because they think that is the way to deflect the public’s fury. It’s too late for all that, and anyway, it is a form of political play, judging by the comments of those like Andrew Mackay who said that his conversation with David Cameron about his resignation was ‘very friendly’

* these revelations come in a wider context. For instance, Letwin’s tennis court claims jostle in my head with memories of the man’s unbelievable arrogance a few years ago, when he said that he would rather ‘beg, borrow or steal’ than send his children to the local struggling secondary school, Lilian Baylis……………

* …………stopping that angry train of thought right there…….I can see where so much of this expenses crisis anger is coming from, a fury that could be heard audibly on BBC’s Question Time last night where members of the audience were heckling the most downcast and furtive looking group of MP’s I have ever seen. People are angry not just about this week’s revelations; they are angry about the revelations in the wider context of the kind of society we live in, the inequality between citizens, the arrogance of a certain class, riding high since Thatcherism, and a political class that agree about most things and yet have not tackled some of the pressing inequalities in our society.

* for this reason, I think it vital that we don’t descend into cynicism, manipulated by an amoral press, who are having a field day exploiting and exposing the human weaknesses of the political class. As the expenses crisis unfolds, right wing parties put out their ugly propaganda and attract votes on the basis that ‘ they’re all the same, out for themselves, not protecting British people etc.’

This is a really worrying development and makes it vitally important that those of us who believe in democracy, and the power of democracy to effect genuine change, do not slide into a parallel cynicism or apathy.

For this reason, and borrowing from lessons learned at times of personal crisis, I can see this is an important turning point. And a turning point always involves a choice, put crudely, between negative defeatism or genuine change, on the basis of objective analysis.

This is such a moment of choice for our parliamentary system and politicians that goes far beyond a cleaned up expenses process. This crisis must be a spring board for a shift in politics, the emergence of a new generation and type of political leaders, and a politics more concerned with the hard slog of promoting social justice than enriching the egos or purses of particular individuals.