It was all smiles when new prime minister Tony Blair posed alongside the 101 ‘Blair Babes’ elected to parliament again in 1997.
However Harriet Harman, who arrange the photoshoot, at present criticises him for gate-crashing the occasion and undermining the bid to have a good time girls’s progress.
Harman, 74, who stood down as a Labour MP this 12 months, mentioned the sight of Tony Blair surrounded by the ladies reminded her of the musical The King and I, during which a chauvinist King of Siam performed by Yul Brynner, is proven towering over his many wives and youngsters.
She advised at present’s version of Radio 4’s The Reunion: ‘I organised {a photograph} of the hundred girls and clearly notified Quantity 10 that we have been going to do this, and we have been horrified that Tony determined he was going to hitch us.
‘We wished it to be 100 and one robust girls there representing girls within the nation and in Parliament. We did not desire a man, any man, within the scenario.’
Tony Blair famously posed for {a photograph} with many of the 101 feminine Labour MPs elected as a part of his 1997 landslide victory
The pictures led to the feminine MPs being referred to as led to them being referred to as ‘Blair’s Babes’
Harriet Harman, who arrange the photoshoot, at present criticises Blair for gate-crashing the occasion and undermining the bid to have a good time girls’s progress
The well-known {photograph} was to mark the election of a record-breaking variety of feminine Labour MPs. However the PM’s presence was a present to headline writers, who inevitably dubbed them ‘Blair’s Babes’.
The King and I advised the story of the love between a free-thinking English governess and the immodest King, performed by Brynner within the 1951 unique stage manufacturing and the 1956 movie.
In at present’s interview, Harman referenced a line from the music, Shall I Inform You What I Consider You during which Anna, the governess, likens the King to a ram surrounded by adoring sheep.
Harman mentioned: ‘To be truthful, Tony was the prime minister, he’d obtained a stonking majority, he’d supported all-women shortlists. So, the ladies have been very supportive of him. However I feel what was not understood is that we would have liked to indicate we have been there on our personal phrases. Or in any other case, it regarded like – it was like – the Yul Brynner factor within the King and I, a flock of sheep and he the one ram. All of us regarded like a supporting act.’
Anji Hunter, who served as Downing Road director of presidency relations within the first Blair authorities admitted she had organized for Blair to be within the {photograph}.
Anji Hunter (pictured in 1999), who served as Downing Road director of presidency relations within the first Blair authorities admitted she had organized for Blair to be within the {photograph}
Harriet Harman in 1996. The Reunion is on BBC Radio 4 at present at 10am and can also be obtainable by way of BBC Sounds
However she was unapologetic: ‘I’m not sorry about it. I’m sorry Harriet appears like that. I feel it gave enormous publicity to the trigger for ladies coming into Parliament which has been nothing however a great factor.’
Right this moment’s version of The Reunion seems at Tony Blair’s first 100 days in energy.
Harman, appointed Secretary of State for Social Safety and the primary ever Minister for Girls, mentioned she was gradual to understand how the election victory had modified the friendships on the coronary heart of the New Labour challenge.
She mentioned: ‘I bear in mind Jack Straw once we have been first assembly as a cupboard referring to Tony as prime minister and I assumed ‘Oh God. That is so obsequious and why is he doing that’.
‘However he obtained it. It was not Tony, that really he was the prime minister and that was his predominant duty, and our sort of friendship group was not the purpose anymore.
‘It was workplace and it took me fairly some time to recognise that.’
The Reunion is on BBC Radio 4 at present at 10am and can also be obtainable by way of BBC Sounds.
