Most Influential Woman?

I heard yesterday that the independent has released a list of the top 10 most influential women and I was in it! So I rushed to the Herne Hill newsagents to buy a copy of the paper before it was sold out, only to find that I was not number 2, but number 8.

So who do they think is the most influential woman in the country? The Queen. Bollocks to that, I say. We're talking about a woman who only deigns to speak to her "subjects" once a year on Christmas Day when they most likely won't be listening anyway.

And number 2, dare I even speak the name of the he-monster that was Margaret Thatcher. The woman can't even speak, let alone stand on her own two feet, and she hasn't been in power for 18 years!! How could she be more influential than a living, breathing, legislating Harriet Harman? It makes me ill.

So at least I'm number 3 right? WRONG. I am still beaten by JK Rowling, a kiddie novel writer, Posh Spice (fair enoug)h, Shami Chakrabatty who bizarrely is more influential by doing the job I held 28 years ago, and Elisabeth Murdoch who only got there because of her family connections.

So I come in at number 8, just pipping Cherie Blair (how? how?) and Zaha Hadid who I'm sure none of you have even heard of.

What a load of Bollocks.

Where has Harriet Been?

Sorry for not making any updates at all in the past week. I'm a busy woman you know!
Besides, parliament was in recess, (again!) and that means that we MPs should be taking time off from our usual activities including blogging.
So, 10 points for whoever can guess what I've been up to this past week.

a) Trying to raise funds for the Labour Party* before it bankrupts me
b) Gathering up supporters to oust Gordon
c) Crushing Crazy Nadine's dream of being an influential politician
d) Sorting out my £23,000 payrise,
e) Recovering from the Crewe and Nantwich disaster.
f) All of the above.

*Seriously

Boo and Sandwich

Everyone is talking about Crewe and Nantwich -yawn.
You probably haven't heard, but there is a by-election happening there, tomorrow.
It shows how inexperienced Labour is at running campaigns. They should have got me, winner of the 2007 Deputy Leadership election to do it. Instead they played the toff card. A big no-no and trust me, my Uncle was the Earl of Longford, never never talk about toffs. It always comes back to bite you in the ass.

Personally, I blame the problems on Gwyneth Dunwoody.
She should have named her daughter "Gwyneth" instead of Tamsin or Moyra*
That way people wouldn't have noticed it was someone else running.


Most people are forgetting that she spent her last years voting against government bills with the Tories. Gwyneth was a selfish old biddy, always putting herself and her constituents before the Labour Party. I bet she was a double agent and the loss of that constituency will make no difference whatsoever.

*Good Heavens, What was she thinking!
**BLOGGING MAY BE LIGHT TILL THE WEEKEND - PLEASE BEAR WITH THE INFREQUENT SERVICE.

Naomi Campbell rescues the Labour Party

Being a leader often means coming up with innovative solutions to difficult problems.
I'd been thinking about how to fix this temporary dip in the polls and then it struck me...what Labour needs is a celebrity. Someone who can shore up our core vote and is a good role model for kids. So I looked in the phone book for a talent agency and asked who they could rustle up as quickly as possible. We were in luck. It turned out that Naomi Campbell is on bail for assaulting a police officer and would happily get out of bed for less than £10,000.

Female Vote - check
Black Vote - check
Tall Vote - check

So, I told Naomi on the phone that if anyone asks what she was doing there, she should just say "Women's Health Issues" -easily the most uncomfortable topic for aggressive male journalists. I also told her to say something nice about Gordon, something surprising like "he's a barrel of laughs" or " very jolly". Just watch the video to see how well she does



Naomi and Gordon have lots of things in common. She has been to anger management and he is known to get into fits of indescribable rage, so they got on well together and she gave him a couple of tips . She might even have given style advice to frumpy Sarah Brown while she was there.

When the world is beating at your door with a recession, inflation, tax palavers, housing issues, climate change, godawful election results and a suspiciously inconvenient by-election, Naomi Campbell is just the pick-me-up we need to take everyone's minds off the problems.

Besides the only other option was to go with Hazel Blear's idea An Apprentice/Maria/Strictly Come Dancing show starring Gordon, which I thought was completely bonkers - everyone knows Gordon can't sing or dance!* It just goes to show that when it comes to the Labour Party, truth will always out-parody fictional spoofs.

*or be in a competition where he's not the only contestant

Harriet Harman looking good

Yesterday someone took a picture of me while I was day dreaming about when I become Prime Minister. Don't I look smart and cute? Certainly a lot better than Jacqui Smith, who was struggling to pay attention to what Gordon was saying and is getting more haggard looking by the minute. The poisoned chalice position of Home Secretary is clearly taking its toll.

At least she's started covering up her cleavage a bit now. Personally, I think the only reason Jacqui ever got noticed was because she stuck her 36DDs out, very vulgar and totally deserving of that caricature on Headcases.

Speaking of which.. I wonder when they'll do me. Surely I am important enough to have someone spoof me by now?

Aunty Diluvian

I know you're wondering where I've been.
Undercover, that's where. It's a dangerous time to be a member of the labour party. We are not popular at all, not even with ourselves.

I really need to blog about something else other than Labour issues right now which are just too depressing. Something that will cheer me up. Hmm... Let's see.. How about Nadine Dorries? She's always good for a laugh. "Who?" I hear you ask. Exactly.

Nadine is a backbench Tory nobody (who as my constiutents would say, "thinks she is all that"). Whenever people complain about the poor quality of female labour MPs, I point smugly at the crazy lady sitting on the Tory benches who single-handedly makes us look like the army of competent intellectual professionals we know ourselves to be.

Yesterday, Nadine complained that another Tory MP, John Bercow, used BIG words that she didn't understand like p-r-e-j-u-d-i-c-e-d and then continues:

Antediluvian isn’t a word you hear much on the housing estates across Britain, so I had to ask what it meant*.

Well Quite. My personal experience is that you don't hear many words on housing estates, people there prefer to communicate by a series of grunts and growls.
I think it is rather rude of Nadine to speak ofthe working classes -her own people, in such a fashion. Perhaps someone should tell her that a housing estate is not the best place to go if one needs to improve one's diction.

It is shocking though. This is a word that is used many times in parliament. We tend to use a lot of big words in the house you know. It's not a place for illiterate old nurses. Clearly, she should have checked her dictionary during the debates then, not just assumed we were talking about some MP's relative! At least she she had the good sense to finally ask someone yesterday, even though she still got the meaning of the word wrong.

Before a flood apparently

No, Dear. Before THE Flood. Not just any flood, or all floods, Nadine. Sheesh.
Presumably now she thinks that John Bercow was referring to her as something that happens before a flood -A sort of giant sandbag perhaps?
She then uses the word 5 more times (practice makes perfect!) although never seems to quite grasp its meaning.

The good thing though is that unlike me, Nadine does not allow comments on her blog, which means that no one will be able to correct her and we can all have a good laugh for a while. Yes Mid Bedfordshire, read it and weep. This is the woman YOU voted for, who represents your views in parliament. Remember that next time you write a letter to your MP and use simple words or textspeak.

*Will someone please get the woman a dictionary for Christmas? It is too risky letting her "ask somebody".

In Peckham Today

Today is Friday, which means instead of leading the House of Commons, I have to be in my constituency talking to residents there who have problems. Shudders.

A complete waste of time as everyone knows they will vote Labour anyway.
The caseload is unusually high as well.
They must have seen me on BBC last week, saying how "determined I was to listen".
I wasn't talking to you, Peckham!

Boris's new Crony.

Now that our Minister for London (yes that's you Tessa) has completely ballsed up the london elections and handed the mayoralty to the Tories on a silver platter, I am effectively the last London Labour MP standing*. Diane Abbott has been slapped down and Kate Hoey, aka "Bonkers" didn't even wait for the results to be announced before jumping on the Boris Bandwagon.

The Labour Bloggers** and myself are now what's left of the London opposition to Tory Mayor.
Sigh.
Leading from the front is Bob Piper who has just discovered that Boris has hired a black person to be his Deputy Mayor. Yup, you read that right - Ray Lewis, a black person!
This is a shamelesss hijacking of Labour Party policy if I ever saw one. Everyone knows that Black people are a Labour thing.
I never thought the Tories would stoop so low and as Bob points out, this is cronyism of the worst kind - Look at the way they're hugging for goodness sake!

Just as he was announcing that he wants the focus of his mayoralty to be on youth gun and knife crime. One of the inconsiderate shits in my Peckham constituency decides to go and get himself stabbed to death. An altogether rather convenient death, wouldn't you say? No doubt organised by the Tory mafia!

*Yes I know there are other London Labour MPs, but you can't remember any of them can you? Exactly. Neither can I. QED.
**those of them that have regained consciousness and not living in denial

Harriet Harman's Blog...

...is back up.

God help us.
I wonder what the new password is.
Whoever is writing it, is not even bothering to blog properly anymore. Just a to-do list of what I'm doing each day such as trying to solve the terrible problem of young people hanging around an estate.

Speaking of which, someone has cunningly noticed my little white lie on Adam Boulton's show last week. Any excuses...? Like i said before When all else fails, act girly and stupid and people will go easy on you.

I really should write a book about survival tips for a long-term political career.

Reassuring Party Members - A letter from Harriet

I sent the following email to Labour party members during the chaos. Gordon really should have been writing it, but we didn't want to make things worse. You need someone who is able to write with plenty of meaning hidden between the lines. I have filled in the blanks for you below.

A heartfelt thank you to all party members and party staff who worked so hard in the elections on May 1.
Dear Peasants.. I mean Comrades! Thanks for nothing, which would have been better than your half-arsed campaigning efforts on May 1st.

Congratulations to newly elected and re-elected councillors and Greater London Assembly members.
However, Congratulations to those of you who probably stood unopposed or at least managed to escape the slaughter and carnage by rigging the postal vote system.

It was good to see the gains that we made, including in Slough, Liverpool, Ipswich and Oxford and the increase in our vote for the GLA in London.
It was good to see that there are still some people out there who will vote for a donkey as long as it wears a Red Rosette.

But it was a tough night for the party in Wales, and in England And I want to pay tribute to our council leaders and all our councillors who lost,
To the losers who think that the night was tough, think again. We will probably be obliterated in the next general election and you can kiss goodbye to any hope of a peerage or parliamentary career or any advancement in Labour Party politics and all the perks that would have awaited you

and to Ken Livingstone who did so much in improving policing, housing and securing the Olympics
and to that odious little man who thought he was the Emperor of London, whose improved policing now means I can't go into my own constituency without a stab vest, and getting London the Olympics which are now costing £100 billion instead of £1 billion * and which your grandchildren will still be paying for 2062., Good riddance!

This election was dominated by the economy and it is clear that people are feeling the pinch.
The election was dominated by the fact that we removed the 10p tax band, to make things easier for the middle class and boy did those working class oiks feel the pinch!

As the Prime Minister said, "We have to listen as well as lead", this means listening widely and responding wisely.
As the Prime Minister proudly repeated the hypnotic meaningless guff that I taught him, remember that we are NOT a listening party, why? BECAUSE WE KNOW BEST! However as long as we TELL people that we're listening, then that's alright.

One consequence of the results of Thursday's elections is that there will now be closer scrutiny of what the Conservatives are proposing.
One consequence of the results of Thursday's elections is that there are fewer footsoldiers to deliver our leaflets in the next election.
People will have no choice but to read the Tory leaflets. Sh*t.

We will now step up our attack on the Conservative Party.
We will now step up our attack on them with the few wounded troops we have left.
As long as people remember that they are nasty and racists, we can continue to put up donkey candidates i.e you, my beloved comrades and keep winning elections.

Our values are clear and our commitment is strong.
Our values are clear enough and our commitment to remaining in power come hell or high water remains strong.

Working together we will make progress for the hard working families of Britain.
[EVIL LAUGH]
We haven't made much progress for the hard working families of Britain, but keep voting for us as we're working on it.
It is always darkest before the light at the end of the tunnel .

Thank you so much for your support
Best wishes,
Harriet Harman
Deputy Leader of the Labour Party
Thanking you for your support in advance of the upcoming leadership election.
Best Wishes,
Don't forget to vote for Harriet Harman as Leader of the Labour Party after conference... YOU KNOW IT'S GOING TO HAPPEN DON'T FIGHT IT!

*although that's partly Tessa's fault to be fair

Rising from the Ashes

I'm sure you don't need to ask where I've been these last few days.On the plus side, at least we won back Slough council!

I've been doing the rounds from studio to studio and comforting our people on the ground. After the scale of Thursday's election disaster, only a woman could do the damage limitation for Labour properly.

In testing times, people want someone to soothe and calm their nerves. Can Hazel soothe? (HA!) Can Jacqui soothe (don't think so!) err... who else is left? That's right. NO ONE. They should call me Harriet "Soothing" Harman.

Useless Gordon, wheeling me out at such an ungodly hour, 7:30am for pity's sake to make excuses for him while he cowered behind his desk.
I received an anonymous text while I was on air. "Do you have any idea how nauseating it is to have to listen to you say over and over and over again that Labour will be "more focused on listening to people and more in touch". The cheek! To be fair, I'm not sure anyone bought that rubbish. What Labour has to do is "listen and learn"?
What we really need to do is dump Gordon and get someone who isn't so bloody weird e.g. me.

Imagine it. If Gordon resigns... I would become by default, Britain's first female Prime Minister.

Don't worry though. I gave Macavity a piece of my mind and got him out there to face the music with his favourite interviewer Andrew Marr who doesn't have the balls to ask him tough questions. It did not go well. Clearly Marr's Dr. Jekyll wasn't in the building and left Dr. Jekyll to man the studio. Dear, oh Dear. Easily the most humiliating interview Gordon's ever had to do. Talk about kicking a man when he's down. Sick Stuff. At least Paxman is consistent!

Sometimes I almost feel sorry for Gordon, he had absolutely no idea what he was getting himself into, but I mustn't grumble as his loss is my gain. People would be crazy not to make me leader after the hash he's made of things!

I admit I have been giving Gordon lessons (out of pity of course) on how to deal with Cameron at PMQs, My "I will not take lessons from so-and-so" riposte has been working a treat, although I don't know if it is going to work this Wednesday. No line is fool-proof when you've got the lowest share of the vote for Labour in over 40 years. Tomorrow I will be sitting as far away from Gordon on the front benches as possible. It's the sensible thing to do.