Mental illness has always taken up a lot of space in the lexicon of New Labour, I have always thought Alistair Campbell’s own brush with the black dog had something to do with this. From Ron Davies’s “moment of madness” to Gordon Brown’s “psychological flaws”, the terror of incipient madeness has always been a New Labour nightmare. I wrote about this tendency a few years ago but recent events have brought me back the subject.
It was telling that Damian McBride’s emails contained references to Frances Osborne’s state of mind – as if it would be a bad thing that she was upset by her husband’s political misfortunes. It seemed inconceivable in the tough-guy world of the Red Rag plotters that their infantile fictions might result in the the British public to feeling more sympathetic towards the shadow chancellor’s wife.
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