Harriet Harperson

How refreshing to hear the Labour Party's new deputy leader saying that she was elected because she has always tried to be a champion for women. This must be a great comfort to the single mothers whose benefit she cut in 1997. For this miserly act, a gathering of Liberals in a London wine bar gave her the coveted Sh*t of the Year award. Two gentlemen in the bar applauded wildly when the award was announced. It transpired that one of them was her former Press Officer - sacked for not being on message. A few weeks later my son (then 8) met Paddy Ashdown and told him, "I've seen you on television. You were telling the Prime Minister off - about the mothers".