What is it about Peckham that causes so many problems to Labour MPs?
Yesterday, the area’s parliamentary representative, Harriet Harman, decided to go on a walkabout in her constituency. Not only was she accompanied by four strapping police officers, but she was encased in a rather fetching Kevlar™ stab-proof vest.
The suggestion that she had plumped for that particular wardrobe item because Peckham was a dodgy area didn’t go down too well with the locals. Mrs Beatrice Smith, 63, commented:
“The only time we see Harriet Harman is either on voting day or doing some PR stunt. There is a lot of trouble on the estates but we don’t get given stab vests.”
This morning, on the Today programme, a shrilly defensive Ms Harman was given a bit of a roasting by John Humphrys (who could scarcely suppress his delight at her discomfiture). No, she didn’t wear a stab-proof vest to walk about her constituency beacause she didn’t feel safe without it, she insisted. Perish the thought. She had simply put the gear on as a “courtesy” to the bobbies who were escorting her.
Digging herself deeper into the hole that was threatening to collapse on top of her, she confided:
“Just as I might wear a hard hat on a building site or an Indian outfit going to meet Indian constituents, it’s just about wearing the kit.”
Harriet has clearly learned nothing from the experience of her cabinet colleague, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, who last January told the Sunday Times that she wouldn’t feel safe walking alone after dark on the streets of Hackney, or even Kensington and Chelsea, but that she had once “bought a kebab in Peckham” at night. It later emerged that she had been accompanied on her intrepid foray by “a man with broad shoulders”. That didn’t go down too well with the locals, either.
Tomorrow, in Gordon’s absence, Harriet will field Prime Minister’s Questions. Something to look forward to, if only to see what “kit” she decides to put on.
