An Apology to Chloe Smith
Fiona MacTaggart MP apologies to new Tory Minister, Chloe Smith, for remarks she made at the Despatch Box.
2 Nov 2011, 11:40
Fiona MacTaggart
So when at Treasury Questions this week I patronised a new Conservative minister, I felt ashamed of myself.
I had arrived feeling smug, having worked out that unemployment among women, at over one million was a record not exceeded since George Osborne was an undergraduate. Yet before the general election the Conservatives had promised 3,000 extra midwives and 4,200 extra health visitors, which had they been employed, would certainly have helped to reduce that figure. This felt like a question which would really illustrate how hard this government is hitting women.
But the person who answered was Chloe Smith, on her first outing as a Treasury Minister, and she is the second youngest MP. Instead of binning my pre-planned remarks I sailed on, making it worse by noting that at the time she was in primary school. I didn’t think at all about how that must have felt to her at her first outing at the despatch box. That was mean and I am sorry.
Actually she dealt with it admirably - not the substance (they still have no policy to increase jobs for women) - but the tone. And I suspect that the fact that she has faced more than her fair share of patronising helped. She was able graciously to shift into a justifiably self righteous mode about my tone, which made the government's lack of policy redundant. Well done her.
Comments (6)
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"I had arrived feeling smug, having worked out that unemployment among women, at over one million was a record not exceeded since George Osborne was an undergraduate."
I could be wrong, but I'm surprised that your overriding emotion at discovering this information was smugness. I guess politics is really just about point scoring rather than using ones time constructively.
02/11/2011 12:44Good on you for apologising. Sounds much better than your colleague Chris Bryant's pathetic denials on your behalf.
I trust also we won't hear anymore from your side about Cameron's opinion towards women and just agree that MPs on all sides say things they may later regret.
02/11/2011 20:39Thanks for that irrelevance. And when are you going to apologise - and I mean grovel like your life depended on it: from Blair, Brown and Balls right the way down to you - for the deliberate and spitefully ideological mess you and your ilk left in May 2010?
Thought so.
03/11/2011 00:34I am cynical about politicians..
Having read the above .. the original comments and the subsequent apology .. I appear to right to be cynical.
They appear to have learned nothing from the Expenses scandal. A little humility and humanity to fellow politicians would be acceptable.
If anyone had described another "normal" person in those terms...
Some politicians appear to work really hard to make themselves to make themselves despised. I have news: they succeed.
But at a time when politicians are regarded by many as lower than estate agents , it surely behoves them to try to act in a civilised manner... Instead they act like unruly children.
Nuff said.
03/11/2011 16:56@Madasafish: quite.
Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough!
It isn't fit for humans now,
There isn't an MP to grace a row.
Swarm over, Death!
[with apologies to Betjeman].
03/11/2011 23:47Do not be smug.
06/11/2011 12:36