Patronising Pat strikes again...

I rather enjoyed this little passage from A Journey about Blair letting Pat Hewitt talk at cabinet just to annoy John Prescott.

He wrote of Prescott: “He was definitely old fashioned and not great at working with a certain type of middle class woman, and though sound on the policy of gay rights was led more by his head than his heart.”

Mr Blair continues, telling how at cabinet Mr Prescott would sit “like a grumbling volcano ready to erupt” often because of one of the women that had spoken up.

He writes: “Patricia Hewitt was sure to get him going. She was in fact a really good minister and was excellent at the Department of Health, taking truly difficult decisions with immense determination, but at cabinet she would usually raise the women’s angle.

“John would make some slightly off colour remark if he was in a sour mood. I would then bring her in again just for the sheer entertainment of watching him explode.

“She would patronise him in the most wonderfully insensitive fashion: ‘Now John, that’s a very, very good point you’ve just made, and it’s always so worth listening to you.’”

You can actually hear Hewitt’s voice in your head when you read that last bit. Freakish.