So how scared should Gordon Brown be of Caroline Flint? In my News of the World column, I warn against underestimating the wrath of Labour women. They suspect that Brown, in his anger, is now beating up on the female members of the Cabinet and are making a pre-emptive strike.
Remember last summer’s rebellion: it was the revenge of the Blair babes. Siobhan McDonagh, Joan Ryan, Fiona Mactaggart, Janet Anderson – with Ruth Kelly being the Cabinet casualty. They all knew they would be briefed against by McBride, that their personal lives would be exposed to the gossip columns. But it was a price they were willing to pay.
McBride did an effective job in the end, identifying and ‘outing’ them so they could not detonate in a co-ordinated way. But now the Labour sorority is back. Flint wants to know why, if Geoff Hoon and James Purnell are both guilty of property expense tricks, Hazel is being briefed against and denounced as “totally unacceptable”? Of course the reason is that Blears had the guts to write that Observer article saying “YouTube
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