Watching The Daily Politics earlier today and their coverage of PMQs where the deputies stood in, I thought that Harriet Harman did quite well and managed to skewer Hague a couple of times with well chosen political points (apparently he has taken £30,000 from RBS for public speaking recently and also used some of his own words about deregulation when he was Tory leader against him). Sure, she was a bit stumbly but no worse than many I have seen at the despatch box and even Hague stumbled over his words a couple of times.
But during the discussion afterwards, most of the public who had contacted the show thought she had done really badly and that Hague had won hands down. The consensus among the pundits was that she had done quite well and certainly done her incipient leadership bid now harm. Andrew Neil questioned if that is the Westminster bubble insiders view and people outside see things very differently.
Does this mean I am now thinking as if I am inside the Westminster bubble!?
Hmm, a very interesting question that.
ReplyDeleteIf Harman is felt to be responding to questions with "yeah? Well you're an X so ner" style reply, rather than actually dealing with the question properly, I think 'normal' people will look at that quite negatively.
If you attach a lot of value to seeing Tories getting told off, you're going to think she did well.
One thing's for sure - hard to be involved with politics and stay objective.