ANOTHER VOICE
Sorry, boys, but Harriet's right. It's time for a metaphorical castration
BORIS JOHNSON
Harriet Harman, the former Cabinet minister, has suddenly understood what is wrong with this country. It's not just that there are too many men running the place. Almost everyone who writes about politics is also a man, she complains, and they keep using these hideous hairy male words and metaphors. No wonder women find politics such a turn-off, says Harman, who, since being sacked as social security secretary, has been made Tony Blair's official envoy to the female sex. In a harrowing piece in the Guardian, she blames the male lobby hacks — 'powerful political editors who can make or break stories or reputations' — for skew- ing democracy, and putting women off. The male flavour obstructs the connection between women and their Parliament,' con- tends Harman:
Political reporting accurately reveals to men in the country the conversations between men in the lobby and men in Parliament. Approving talk of 'big hitters', 'big beasts' and 'big guns' is clearly nothing to do with women. No woman would be encouraged to see a 'big beast' in charge of our schools, a 'big gun' leading the peace process as Secre- tary of State for Northern Ireland or a 'big hitter' in the Home Office. Few women talk approvingly of each other as 'heavyweight'! Political debate couched in these terms leaves women cold.
Now, it's no good us sniggering at poor old Hattie, or saying that this is just the bit- terness of a woman who was brought low by the hostility of male reporters, and then sacked by a man. The awful truth is that she is right.
Look at us, those of us who claim to elu- cidate our readers about politics. If you go down to the Lobby, the atmosphere is still like some Chicago gambling-den of the 1930s. Here is Peter Riddell, his belly spilling over his belt in a frighteningly un- feminine way; there is George Jones and the rest of them, exuding butchness from every pore. They lounge and lurch and leer, and endlessly deploy phalanxes of military metaphors. Everything is about the 'cut and thrust' of politics. William Hague and Tony Blair are always 'trading blows'. So and so is 'sniping' or laying an 'ambush', just as they did for Harriet. According to Simon Heifer, Gordon Brown has an 'arsenal of talent'. No wonder, Hattie Harman would complain, there has never been a female chancellor of the exchequer. Women are not supposed to go in for arsenals. And it is simply not good enough for us male jour- nalists to protest, and say that macho metaphors have always been around; that they are an indispensable part of Western literature. We could argue that Latin love poetry, aimed at winning the hearts of tricky girls like Lesbia, was horribly stuffed with epithets of war. You didn't woo the girl. You laid siege to her. You didn't go to bed with her. You stormed her battlements or possibly her secret fastness/citadel. Mili- tat omnis amans, et habet sua castra cupido, as Ovid pointed out.
If love is about fighting, we might say, then surely it is OK to use the same spread of metaphor for politics. Surely politics, to invert the famous dictum, is the continua- tion of war by other means? `Jospin loses fight to reform public sector,' says a head- line in the Times. Surely, you will say, we need some way of expressing the violence, the aggression involved in this struggle between Jospin and the public sector? Why can't we say 'fight'? And yet I put it to you, sorrowfully, that Hattie may not only be right in her lit crit of male political journal- ism; she may also be right about its effect.
All those of us who want intelligent female readers for our political coverage and it is impossible to overstate how badly we want this — should heed her words. Remember that Alastair Campbell has told Blair not to bother with the Lobby any- more: the way to reach Worcester woman, says Campbell, is to give interviews to mag- azines like Bella and Prima Baby. That is where you will find the serious political journalism; the sensitive, detailed coverage, not bristling with the rusty panoply of Mars.
I foresee the day when modern New Labour-friendly newspapers, and possibly even The Spectator, will be equipped with a My boyfriend took paternity leave — as soon as I gave birth he was of ' kind of metaphor police, feminising and Harmanising our language. It will be diffi- cult. What are Ken Clarke and Michael Heseltine if not 'big beasts', as they were once famously described by Tristan Garel- Jones? How, without using off-putting male metaphor, can one describe their sumo-like impact in the upper reaches of the Tory party? Are they 'fuller-figured beasts'? `Comfortable with their weight beasts'? If it is offensive to women to say that Ken Clarke is a 'big hitter', what shall we say instead? That he is a 'big nurturer'?
The process of Harmanisation will mean a painful adjustment, a sort of vasectomy, for male-metaphor wielders on both ends of the political spectrum. Here, for instance, is an abridged extract from Andrew Rawnsley, the unimpeachably left- wing commentator, in last Sunday's Observ- er. I think you will agree that testosterone is slooshing around Mr Rawnsley in such quantities that one expects to see it drib- bling from his nostrils in his picture by-line.
Like the Polish cavalry charging against Ger- man panzers, at every encounter the progres- sive forces were crushed by the forces of con- servatism. But New Labour advanced into office by surrendering territory to the Right. Neurotically armouring themselves against Tory tax bombshells, Blair and Brown virtual- ly expunged the word 'spending' from the Left's vocabulary. The Tory's killer con- tention – that only the Right can be trusted with the economy – had to be exploded.
Oh boy, oh boy. Help. How many female readers will the Observer lose if they carry on like this? How can we Harmanise Mr Rawnsley's militaristic raving? May I sug- gest the following:
Like mascara in the rain, or like a bunch of daffodils in the hot May sun, progressive ideas gave way to Conservatism. But New Labour learnt to compromise. Neurotically wrapping themselves in thermal underwear, to protect them against chilling Tory warn- ings on tax, Blair and Brown deep-cleansed the word spending from the Left's vocabu- lary. The Tories' silly suggestion — that only the Right can be trusted with the economy had to be dispensed with.
There. That should do it. Next time Rawnsley finds himself reaching for a macho metaphor, like John Wayne reaching for his six-shooter, let us hope he holds his hand, and produces a flower or something. Yup, I've seen the future, or rather, the fuchsia.
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