Labour leadership hopeful Yvette Cooper is not putting up with sexist claims from a source in her rival Andy Burnham's campaign that she’s being tactically led by her husband, Ed Balls, the former shadow chancellor.
In response to claims that suggested that her tactics are 'straight out of the Ed Balls playbook', Yvette responded by saying that, 'This is going back almost to the days of the suffragettes. They said about the suffragettes they couldn’t do things because of things their husbands have done. It is a bit more 1915 than 2015.'
Well said, Ms Cooper.
Frustrations broke into the open on Monday as Yvette and Burnham compete to be seen as the main competition to Jeremy Corbyn, who is the frontrunner to lead the party with lots of grassroots enthusiasm for his leftwing politics. Both Yvette and Burnham believe they have a better chance of beating Corbyn, and think the other should back off in their campaign to let the other win.
But later, Yvette wisely moved on from the issue of gender, telling the website PoliticsHome that the candidates should 'start focusing on the choice and the ideas that we have got'. She added: 'Everybody is fed up of discussions in a vortex in the Westminster bubble. What people want to know is who can lead the party.'
Exactly, it's a question of capability, not of gender.
Currently JC is in the lead, with 53% of the vote, but watch this space...
