Harriet Harman, addressing the Scottish Labour conference, describes the Lib Dem MP and Tory lickspittle Danny Alexander, in an essentially humourous, but to my mind politically valid passage of her speech, as a "ginger rodent". Nice one, Hazza.

But then... DOH! Hazza has apologised for slagging off Osborne's bag-carrier, saying she was "wrong".

Catch a fucking grip, Harriet.

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I'm a nasty, violent lefty. You cunt.

Yes?... Oh...

Not nice to have a go at someone about being ginger

I'm more puzzled how its somehow 'politically valid'...

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'Because we've reached the limits of what rectal probing can teach us'

I suspect that Beaker is used to being bullied.

It's a stupid and immature thing to have said, but it's not much of an insult. To hear some people talk, though, you'd think she'd said he was a paedophile with a whore for a mother.

Happy to help you fill in another gap in your (from past experience, slightly flawed) appreciation of the political landscape in the UK in 2010.

Danny Alexander is the Liberal Democrat MP for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey. As an MP sitting for a Scottish constituency, and a little more significantly, a key figure in the Tory/LibDem coalition government as Chief Secretary to the Treasury, he is therefore a legitimate political target for the official opposition (that's the Labour Party, Mr Mordon), and in respect of the Scottish dimension, even more so at Labour's Scottish conference.

Harman made a partly jocular reference to Alexander in her speech, saying :



In my view, I think that this is completely fair comment. Harman is indicating that she finds the supine compliance of Alexander and his Lib Dem colleagues with the Tories' savage assault on the less well off in society abhorrent (so far, so unsurprising), and also going a little further in suggesting that Alexander, representing as he does (by dint of his willing aquiesence in implementing Osborne's attacks) is the very essence of Liberal Democrat complicity in the Tories' assault on ordinary people, and a fitting object for the disapproval of decent people. Alexander is actually at the heart of an agenda that leads on fucking over ordinary decent people. She's suggesting that the people of Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey would therefore do well to ditch Alexander as their MP and elect someone possessed of a measure of human empathy, at the very least. In particular, she is asserting that "we" (ie Labour supporters) never want to see Alexander again in the Scottish Highlands - something which is inarguably true, self-evident, and totally un-surprising. And in particular, exactly what it says on the "Labour Oppposition" tin.

Alexander happens to be ginger. So what. So does Charlie Kennedy, and he still manages to make a fair fist of being a paid-up member of the human race, possessed of a measure of compassion.

Alexander, however, doesn't even manage this - which is just one reason why Harman was absolutely right in the first place. Alexander is a completely legitimate target for official opposition politicians, which is why I'm a little disappointed that Harman rowed back from her remarks and furnished Alexander with an apology he did not deserve.

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I'm a nasty, violent lefty. You cunt.

Is this the day when the Mail joins the PC brigade?

How about when Nicholas Soames shouted 'Mine is a gin and tonic, Giovanni!' at John Prescott? Or Churchill calling Attlee 'A sheep in sheep's clothing' or 'A modest man with much to be modest about'?
Edward Heath on Margaret T, 'She probably thinks Sinai is the plural of sinus'? Or Alan Clark on Douglas Hurd, 'He might as well have a corncob up his arse'?

Do they upset you as much, Morden? Or, like me, do you think that Beaker should grow a pair, not tell lies, not go back on his election promises and manifesto, and act just a bit like a grown-up?

I like the way that being likened to vermin wasn't the problem here.

As some of the examples show, maybe there's a class bias in what's OK and being a "character". Check out for example the different way Alan Clark and George Galloway have been treated.

Of course Harman's posh, but for the purpose of this, she isn't because she was speaking on behalf of the Labour Party.

That's what I thought.

Of course no one in the Condems would ever dare call someone in Labour Party anything remotely offensive..... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5399072.stm

Oh.