Hannah Spencer’s maiden speech in the Commons – a cheerful and upbeat performance – was pegged to International Women’s Day. We learned that some girls went to school that day actually dressed as Hannah the plumber, complete with trademark hair. She was understandably chuffed about this. It is, to be honest, hard to imagine little boys going to school dressed as Matthew Goodwin, her defeated Reform rival, which is one of the unfairnesses of gender politics.
I was intending to write about what she didn’t talk about, namely anything to do with Green issues – biodiversity, sustainable farming, the energy cost of data processing centres – but I was frankly distracted by her clothes. One of the reasons why Hannah Spencer came across well in the Gorton and Denton campaign is that she is not just an attractive blonde but embraces colour in a system in which safe dullness alternates with bad taste. Her trademark colourful blouse with waistcoat looked fabulous on election night – lime green with bright pink. But for the maiden speech – oh dear. The waistcoat-blouse combo was lovely: lilac and the same bright pink. But with vivid green trousers? No, just no. Not even if green means Green.
The waistcoat-blouse combo was lovely: lilac and the same bright pink. But with vivid green trousers? No, just no. Not even if green means Green
Would I say this about a man? Obviously not, unless he was remotely interesting sartorially, which men in politics can’t be. But that’s the advantage that women in politics have. They can deploy colour, clothes and hair in a way that men simply can’t. Few of them do in an interesting way.
But to get back to the actual speech, the striking thing was that so much of it could have been delivered by an MP from Reform, although there were also references to the ‘Muslims everywhere who are constantly and often violently scapegoated’ – making clear the coalition of interests the Greens are aspiring to.
Spencer also talked about ‘the white working classes, always lumped into one group and never appreciated’ – Nigel Farage couldn’t have done it better. And then there was the catalogue of people she wants to attract to parliament: ‘Cleaners, unpaid carers, bin collectors, school dinner ladies, the kitchen porters, the farm workers, the plasterers and the plumbers… I will make it possible for you to come.’ Not your normal up-themselves Green voters.
She then addressed the question of economic dispossession, ‘the constituency that elected me is the fifteenth most deprived in the country. [It’s affected by] the state of housing, the struggle for a job, the sheer unfairness of it all. My constituency has been hit hard by cost of living crisis… I share the commitment to putting all our communities at the heart of decision making.’ Hannah Spencer may not have stolen anyone else’s clothes for her own distinctive ensembles, but metaphorically speaking, she stole Reform’s.
Time was, the Greens talked about green issues; she didn’t. Like I say, there are some really important issues she could have mentioned, like the prodigious energy and water requirements of data processing centres (AI’s environmental impact) and the question of self-sufficiency in food production (should solar panels swallow agricultural land?) and indeed loss of biodiversity, but there wasn’t a peep about all that. It was all about issues that Reform and Labour once thought were theirs.
The hunt is on for other politically active blonde plumbers with working class accents, a taste in colourful waistcoats and a greyhound named Elsie Pound. I’d say she’s cornered the market. But maybe she could confine the rainbow to her supporters, not her outfits.
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