I know very little about Andrea Leadsom, but my immediate thought when I heard the headlines about her motherhood comments was, as it very often is in situations where someone is reported to have said something outrageous, “I wonder what she really said?”  Generally speaking, I never get around to going back to source, but in this instance it doesn’t take more than a second on an internet search engine to find audio extracts and transcripts.  If you want to take a look or a listen then two options are The Independent or The Huffington Post.

What I saw and heard immediately confirmed my usual suspicion that it wasn’t as black and white as the headlines would suggest.  It sounds to me like someone who, when asked repeatedly about family and politics, is trying to explain what they mean to her.  If you have children then of course you are likely to look at the future from that perspective.  She acknowledges that what she is saying could be misinterpreted and be hurtful.  She was probably naïve to go on and say it to a journalist and does sound rather clumsy in trying to explain what she means.  So I do understand that people can find what she said insensitive and hurtful and that the resulting headlines caused outrage. I also understand that some people may read and listen and come to a different view to mine.  That’s life, in all its shades of grey.

However, I don’t believe that the headlines “Being a mother gives me edge on May – Leadsom.  Tory minister says she will be better leader because childless home secretary lacks ‘stake in future.’” are a fair reflection of a part of an interview in which the interviewee says “I don’t want this to be ‘Andrea has children, Theresa hasn’t’, because I think that would be really horrible…”  Given that some people have questioned the legitimacy of our new Prime Minister because the Conservative party members did not get a vote and that the furore over these comments contributed to Andrea Leadsom’s withdrawal, I would say that this careless journalism has damaged the legitimacy of our government at a time when we really don’t need it to be so harmed.