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Biscuitgate: it never happened

BiscuitBy Alex Smith / @alexsmith1982

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Gordon Brown is a tragic ditherer who can’t even make up his mind on which is his favourite biscuit, right?

Wrong.

The famous bickie-question, apprently asked of the PM twelve times in a recent MumsNet webchat and mocked by Murdoch knows how many newspapers and blogs since, was never actually put to the PM, according to MumsNet founder Justine Roberts.

In a new comment on Mumsnet, Roberts clarifies:

“The truth is that Gordon Brown didn’t follow the live chat on the screen directly – he answered the questions grouped and fed to him by Mumsnet HQ and his advisers. He didn’t avoid the biscuit question because it didn’t cross his path…

“We were conscious of not merely focusing on frivolities. Fun as biscuits are, access to the Prime Minister is precious and we would have hated to waste time on Rich Tea Fingers at the expense of miscarriage or school starting age. Plus, of course, we’d rather not be seen as a soft touch.”

So, although the question was asked of the PM, Mumsnet themselves never fed it through to him because they thought it wasn’t a worthwhile question.

Unfortunately, David Cameron didn’t think biscuit-gate was as frivalous as Justine Roberts does. Instead, Cameron chose to accept the story as presented to him and raise it in the middle of PMQs last week half way through a debate about Afghanistan and the economy.

Will Cameron now apologise or retract his own juvenile mockery…?

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Alex was editor and first director of LabourList in 2009-2010, during which time he established the site as the number one Labour blog with some 450,000 readers and over 3 million pageviews a year.<br /> <br /> A leading political communications and campaigns specialist, Alex was Director of Online Communications and Campaigns during Ed Miliband's award-winning Labour leadership bid and later as Communications Manager in the Opposition Leader's Office in Parliament.<br /> <br /> He is now a consultant at Champollion Digital, and is also establishing a community network charity, North London Cares, and editing a book on Enterprise in the Labour Party.<br /> <br /> In 2010, Alex stood as a council candidate for Labour in the ward in which he grew up, St George's ward in Islington. He is a co-founder of the Latimer Project and a governor at Holloway School.<br /> <br /> Before becoming involved in the Labour Party, Alex spent 2007-2008 in the United States, working in New York and volunteering on the Obama campaign in Brooklyn. He later devised and directed the independent, grassroots organisation Drive for Obama.<br /> <br /> Alex has written on British and American politics for Prospect Magazine, Progress, Compass, The Fabians and Total Politics magazine as well as for Progressive London, the Government Gazette and House Magazine on policy and web campaigning. He has spoken at events at the Houses of Parliament, Oxford University, Manchester Town Hall and the University of Westminster for organisations including Progressive London, Republic, NetrootsUK and the BBC College of Journalism.<br /> <br /> You can follow Alex on Twitter, where he comments on music, sport and America, as well as politics.

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