Will The Big Guns Always Be Men?; Iain Macwhirter on the neutralising

THE bruisers are back: the big beasts, the big guns. Funny how we always fall back on violent and vaguely phallic imagery when we talk about senior politicians. The big guns are of course John Reid, Charles Clarke and Paul Murphy, who have won promotion in Cabinet over the broken body of education secretary Estelle Morris. The last of the babes, they're calling her.

Mind you, nothing became her better than her leaving. She cited poor relations with the media as one of the reasons she resigned, but Morris's handling of her departure was a real coup. Suddenly she was a heroine. The minister whose demeanour had been compared to that of a primary-school teacher facing a class she couldn't control suddenly emerged as a champion of quiet competence and decency in a cynical profession. In the Commons, she was extravagantly lauded for her honesty, integrity, humanity. MP after MP rose to express his or her shock, respect and even love for her. The tributes were so effusive that Speaker Martin had to order a halt before the House dissolved in tears.

Such praise for one who has fallen is not so much a sincere expression of concern as a celebration of casualty. A politician often feels a twinge of relief at seeing a colleague fall; it reminds him that he is still standing. The press heaped praise on Morris to mitigate its sense of guilt about the way some papers had pried into her private life. Unmarried at 50, wasn't very good at school, etc. We British don't like seeing people kicked when they're down, so the press responds by elevating the politician they have helped to destroy.

It was pretty faint praise anyway. What the press were really saying was that women are jolly nice people, but just aren't up to it at this level. And the trouble is that in Morris's case they, and she, were right. She never seemed comfortable in her post. During the fracas over A-level results and the performance of English primary schools, she looked like a rabbit caught in headlights. Cabinet ministers can't afford to look like that. Nor can they afford to forget, as Morris did, that they'd promised to resign if they didn't meet their targets. It's hard, but no-one said it wouldn't be.

The fact is that politics is a bit of a willy contest. It is essentially a game played by and for insensitive and arrogant men who would no more admit to self-doubt than appear on Blind Date. Successful politicians tend to be those who fight their corners in Cabinet and in the media with the ardour of old bull elephant seals fighting off hungry rogue males.

Our politics reeks of testosterone. In Westminster you practically have to cover your mouth, so rank is the stench of it. It's the same in Scotland, whatever the expectations of the "new politics". (When did we last hear about that?) Former Labour minister Wendy Alexander could hardly be less like Estelle Morris in the sensitivity stakes, and could fight her corner like a wildcat, but even she became a victim of the culture. After fighting her way into Cabinet, then girding her loins to take on McConnell for the top job, she suffered what could only be described as an emotional spasm. Introspection and resignation followed within months. The minister for everything ended up with nothing.

Feminists are intensely frustrated by the Morris affair, as they were with Wendy Alexander. Women feel the personal qualities of the former education secretary - a "real person", a "human being" - ought to be applauded. What man would ever admit they weren't up to the job? they say. Well, Henry McLeish, actually, but he isn't quite the role model women politicians have in mind.

But feminists are inwardly seething that Morris, by her own admission, confirmed the male prejudice that women in politics lack staying power. The Guardian's incensed Polly Toynbee was left trying to argue that Morris was right to want to go, and should be commended for criticising her own performance, but that she should never have admitted it openly. But isn't that what all the men do? Isn't that big beast behaviour?

In reality, men in public life do experience self doubt. In my experience men in public life are often deeply insecure and tortured by all manner of doubts and anxieties. But they suffer in silence. Indeed, in some ways, male politicians are more insecure than women, and more terrified of failure, which is why they adopt such bizarre behaviour when they get into difficulties. Estelle Morris wasn't afraid to say she wasn't up to the job, which is actually a testimony to inner strength. She knows there is life outside Whitehall and that she could be doing other things than flog this particular ministerial dead horse.

For men, it's different. Male politicians somehow find the prospect of failure so terrifying they will go to any lengths to avoid facing up to it. Look at John Prescott, the deputy Prime Minister. He can hardly deliver a coherent sentence; is a presentational nightmare, with his two Jaguars and penchant for using his fists; and has been found out many times, not least over his ill- judged promise to cut car use over the first five years of Labour government. But you can't see Pressa taking the long walk. He is, after all, a big beast and big beasts don't do that kind of thing.

Men like Prescott fall back on their system of defensive political alliances - or cronyism if you must. If you have "friends" in politics you generally survive. People look out for you. Charles Clarke, the new Education Secretary, got into terrible trouble recently by loudly attacking colleagues in Pizza Express, antagonising the unions and attacking cynicism in the media (pots and kettles came to mind). But he had friends. Take that other big gun, Dr John Reid, former Northern Ireland Secretary, now party chairman. He was censured by the Commons Standards Commissioner, Elizabeth Filkin, for misusing his parliamentary allowances and for behaving with other MPs in a bullying manner. If Reid had been First Minister in Scotland there is no way he could have survived such a report. But he did. He also survived a near punch-up with the late Donald Dewar over Reid's son Kevin's involvement in the Lobbygate affair in which Kevin boasted he could provide access to Jack McConnell, a former employee of Kevin's employer, Beattie Media. Reid has friends. He is a big beast.

Indeed, Reid is such a big beast, he seems to be taking over from both the Scottish Secretary, Helen Liddell, and the First Minister, Jack McConnell. We're told that top of his agenda will be sorting out Scottish Labour and masterminding next year's Scottish elections. Jack had better watch. But then, they're both anchored in Lanarkshire politics, and so can be relied upon to look out for each other.

Can women ever achieve big beast status? Why can't they have friends too? Or do they simply lack the necessary equipment? Can our political culture change so that willy-waving isn't the be all and end all? Now is the time to ask these questions if only because Labour's 101 women MPs and positive discrimination in the Scottish parliament seem to have made little difference. Labour's star women - Harriet Harman, Mo Mowlam, Wendy Alexander, Susan Deacon, Estelle Morris - have come and gone without making much of a long-term impact.

The most potent role model for women in politics remains, I'm afraid, Margaret Thatcher. She seems to have been the only one capable of taking on the beasts and winning.

Copyright 2002
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