Remember “Biscuitgate” – which Stephen reported on last week – the apparent inability of the Prime Minister to decide which sort of biscuit he liked?
Turns out there’s not a crumb of truth in it. Private Eye’s Adam MacQueen reports for First Post:
“Being more decisive would spare the Prime Minister needless embarrassment” declared the leader column of the Times, and even David Cameron weighed in at Prime Minister’s Questions: “Are we really going to spend another six months with a Prime Minister who cannot give a straight answer, who cannot pass his own legislation, and who sits in his bunker not even able to decide what sort of biscuits he wants to eat?”
Except, er, no one asked him. As Mumsnet founder Justine Roberts has now clarified in a posting on the website, the biscuit question proposed by various messageboard users was never put to Gordon Brown in the hour that he devoted to the interview.
“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 Mumsnet HQ and his advisers. He didn’t avoid the biscuit question because it didn’t cross his path…
“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.”
It does rather beg the question about how Gordon Brown let it be thought for so long that he didn’t have a view on biscuits when he could have squashed (fly) the stories. At time of writing 154 mums have weighed in on the issue over on Mumsnet – with more than a few participants feeling sorry for how the PM has been portrayed.
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10 Comments
Have to say, I thought all of the negative comments on this biscuit business were a bit shabby. Even if GB had been stuck in front of the computer himself, were people really having a pop at him, with his obvious eyesight problem, just because he did not manage to notice the biscuit questions?
Now that it turns out that he was not even fed the question(s), there are a lot of people including Cameron looking stupid and pathetic. Punch and Judy politicis indeed!
It wouldn’t have even been an issue if Brown didn’t have a habit of serial dithering though. He is not a decisive man, by anyone’s measure.
@ lost libdem
Agree. The picking on Brown is more than tedious. I can’t abide by bullying.
Too late. The myth has already entered public consciousness, and weak comedy wil be wrung from this factoid until he leaves office. Like John Major’s underpants, Williams Hague’s baseball cap, Tony Blair’s prayers with George Bush, and Nick Clegg’s sexual conquests. I’m sure you can think of others.
Truth or context are irrelevant to the success of these memes. Dreadful how politics is reduced to tabloid trivia. OTOH they can be effectively exploited by opponents to encapsulate points they want to make (e.g. Major’s a nerd, Hague is out of touch, Blair’s a religious nut, and Clegg naive). So they’re actually a part of a shared rhetorical repertoire.
There is no way to counter them.
Never mind biscuitgate – what about Watford playgroundgate? When’s Dorothy Thornhill going to be expelled from the party for crass stupidity?
Gordon Brown did not “let it be thought for so long that he didn’t have a view on biscuits when he could have squashed (fly) the stories.”
The day after the MumsNet chat his office tweeted the truth of the matter, as we reported last week:
http://www.labourmatters.com/Editor/crumbs-cameron-takes-the-biscuit-with-false-pmqs-claim/
‘Biscuitgate’ is and always was the product of the fourth estate.
Oh Chris, when are you going to learn not to accept what the media shovel at you?
What has happened in Watford is not to do with playgrounds. It is about organised playschemes that take place in adventure play areas several times a week. These offer free supervised play on challenging equipment. The rule has always been that over 15s are not allowed in, yet parents and grandparents, together with older siblings have continued to enter the area..
Just as you would not accompany your child to school or to a holiday playscheme, nor do you accompany them to this activity. If you want to take your child to a playground or park in Watford, then there are over 40 such places in Watford to go to.
Sara – rubbish. It is the utterly pathetic excuses which have made this situation so bad.
Just because you don’t want to believe something, doesn’t make it rubbish …
Out of interest, how long did it take for Justine Roberts to pipe up and admit he hadn’t even been asked the question?