What Harriet did wrong

Hopi Sen explains what Harriet Harman did wrong this summer:

"It was that interview [about how either the leader or deputy leader should be a woman] which launched a mini media frenzy that meant that any subsequent decisions on gender issues, like domestc violence, rape etc, however strong on their own merits would be covered as part of a harriet harman po faced agenda of male emasculation etc etc etc rather than as a positive agenda for the rights of women.

It’s that i meant by walking straight into the daily mail trap – by putting the process/internal stuff front and centre, you make it easy for your enemies to paint you as self interested and to discredit your wider and more important agenda by attacking your personally.

Now, the people doing these personal attacks on harriet – the Liddles and the Clarksons and the like, are repellant. But to think the best way to defuse the soft bigotry of the right wing press is to set off a culture war firework in their face is the approach of the doughty campaigner for unpopular causes not a persuader for electoral victory."