I gave one interview only – to the Sunday Times – as a prelude to the work we will be doing starting in the Autumn on Body Confidence (see earlier posts).
In that interview – because I was asked what I thought of Christina Hendricks (the MadMen star) and said I thought she was absolutely fabulous – as was Marilyn Monroe – echoes of that interview have been bouncing around the media ever since. Not surprisingly – I was not advocating that women should aspire to replicate Ms Hendricks’ figure – simply saying that it was nice to see an alternative to ultra thin models.
Susie Orbach, author of Fat is a Feminist Issue and more recently Bodies, has this to say on the subject.
Lynne Featherstone 
I really haven’t got time for someone who pretends fat is some sort of feminist issue, utter nonsense. Fat is a health issue, it’s about either eating too much or not doing enough exercise.
Anyone trying to link it to feminism and gender equality is ignoring half the population and just looking for excuses too.
@rowandavies Here’s what she said on her blog: http://bit.ly/duy3iC.
Good point Lynne, this is not about being big or fat it is about having a different shape and being proud of that and not feeling that you have to hide because you are not a size 0.
Dear fellow world leaders,
It is now some nine blogs and quite a while since I last addressed any issues of coalition policy at all. And of course that blog was a list of the fantastic things we had done in the first 10 weeks as prepared for me by the party central office.
Now you know the way we have been living, spending money on clothes and food and such like has led me to the conclusion that we are on the cusp of sweeping away the old world order. We have now started to replace it with a bunch of very nice people who are all blokes who went to Eton and I feel good about this as a working class person who has lived in Wood Green borders (Highgate) all her life.
Do you know that their leader is so good looking- there isn’t a line on his face- have you not seen the posters? I got up close to him once and I can assure you it’s all true. And he was so nice to me as he was asking me to hang his coat up. Cleggy was there too. He seemed very interested in my views on humps in the road and says he has got some illuminating magazines on stuff like that. Honestly I don’t always understand what he is going on about. He says I should start campaigns about issues like liney faces and road humps but I said I cannot do that now. I am a government minister and I must turn my attention to weightier matters such as the state of our great nation and all that is ailing it. It is my calling.
Anyway I am often accused of deviating from the subject in hand so as I was saying we can no longer sustain a situation where everyone can both eat and be educated. These are hard choices to make but you know we had no idea how bad it was until we got into power and now we have seen the figures (not that of Christina Hendricks of course as I was totally misquoted on that) Theresa says we all have to tighten our belts. Not the stick insects though as I like to refer to them. I wanted to call the whole idea “the big society” but another minister has said that the word “big” is sugaring the pill for all the little (actually she used another word but it’s too rude to say here) people and that we should call it the “we’ve taken away your job and now you have to do the same thing for free if you want to get any money out of us to either eat or be educated society”.
I am often asked when I am out on the streets of Wood Green hanging with my homys about my views on the future of energy. I am very clear that I am against nuclear power and I would not be prepared to be part of a government that said it would play a role in renewable energy for the future. No one in my party would suggest such a thing. I blame Eisentstein and all who sailed with him. I wish he had just stuck to directing films I just saw a good film about somewhere quite a bit up north where they used to make stuff until the forefathers of our new world order coalition decided that pushing bits of money about was better for our people.
People keep asking me here if I will meet them but I am terribly busy and I think there is a very real chance they will not like me. So I am going to ignore them completely as they are just my political opponents and need to get a life. They have no understanding that being in a coalition means never having to say you are sorry and that you have to shape your views to those who need your fifty odd votes to push through the most venal right wing ideological agenda that has ever been seen in this country.
Got to go now. The chickens are coming home to roost and I am off for a ramble.