Handbags drawn in deputy debat

By: watches2010 Mood: Date: 02/01/2010 03:34:16 Music: None

IF TESSA Jowell's white Chloe handbag is now attracting a valuation from the Evening Standard, will all female politicians be subject to scrutiny in this way? As to whether Labour members will find thrifty Harriet Harman or unafraid-to-splashout Hazel Blears more attractive, it's great that there are two women in the deputy leadership contest but it should be about the politics, and I still think all six candidates are pretty similar in terms of their voting records.

For the record, I carry a made-in-Bangladesh, non-child-labour cloth bag when I have ideological baggage to haul around, but more often than not travel light, relying on my pockets alone.

Dr Rupa Huq, Kingston University.

HARRIET Harman may not buy expensive handbags, but I doubt all her clothes are from Primark, and her decision to send her son to a selective school suggests she does not necessarily share the core Labour values she is wrapping herself in at present.

By contrast, we should probably feel grateful Hazel Blears likes splashing out on top-class accessories when she had to hurriedly withdraw her Labour Party deputy embroideredpatches leadership promotional clobber because of fears it was produced in sweatshop conditions.

The deputy leadership candidates' posturing over promoting social equality or social aspiration is pretty depressing. The fact is Britain is now a divided society, with great wealth and poverty side by side, but there's not much ministers can practically do to change it without wrecking the economy. If the candidates stopped reducing the debate to questions of consumer habits and life aspirations, we could probably stop caring about their choice of handbags.

Elise Wilson, W6.