Talk:Helen Clark (British politician)

Evidence of Helen Clark's latent toryism
Not convinced, personally. As someone who grew up in Peterborough, and a usual Labour voter, I reckon I might support giving Brian Mawhinney the freedom of the City of Peterborough myself. Mawhinney was Peterborough MP for a long time, and I think people of all political persuasions could respect the contribution he made to the city over a long career as our MP. WE need more to go on than that.

I hadn't heard that Clark had become a tory until I read it here. It might be interesting, especially in this context, to mention that Matthew Norman used to frequently make fun of Clark's ultra-loyalty to Blairism, in his Guardian column. He called her "the android MP for Peterborough" - taking her as a representative face of "Blair's babes", who in the days when Tony had a big majority and everyone liked him used to vote for whatever he said. PaulHammond 11:27, 13 November 2005 (UTC)


 * It seems we could find an awful lot of articles saying she was going to become a conservative, and a couple which thought she had, but I've finally found one saying she didn't. As to Mawhinney, eh, I've removed it as inconsequential and a bit innuendoish. Shimgray | talk | 22:29, 28 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree that a mention of ultra-loyalty is needed and also the view of her as the face of the Blair babes. It's not simply the Guardian who noted this, other reliable sources did also such as the Financial Times.. I did add such content last year but it appears that pretty much all remotely controversial content is banned from this bio, regardless of notability.--Shakehandsman (talk) 21:45, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

BLP noticeboard
An OTRS ticket has been presented for this article, recently it appears to have received some negative additions, a couple of editors have had a bit of an edit to remove excessive weight, if there are any issues please comment at the BLPN here. thanks. Off2riorob (talk) 23:09, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
 * There is nothing wrong with most of the negative points - she's an extremely controversial figure. Yes there's a lack of balance in the article as a whole but the best way round that is to actually add details of he positive contributions to politics. I've attempted to do do this. Please stop deleting so much well sourced content from articles on Labour politicians.--Shakehandsman (talk) 04:50, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
 * As I said, there has been a complaint, please do not reinsert this content without support at the BLPN. Off2riorob (talk) 07:07, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

All woman shortlist
It is reasonable to note that Helen Brinton (as she then was) was selected for Peterborough from an all-woman shortlist, but it is irrelevant and pejorative (thereby falling under WP:BLP) to mention the Industrial tribunal cases in January 1996 which invalidated the use of all-woman shortlists. These cases concerned selections in Keighley, Regents Park and Kensington North and Brentford and Isleworth, not Peterborough. Previous selections were not invalidated, and the use of all-woman shortlists was subsequently made legal again by Act of Parliament. This reference seems to have been included to imply that Helen Brinton ought not to have been selected for Peterborough in the first place, or would not, were it not for the use of a procedure which later turned out to be unacceptable, which is an aspersion that cannot stand under WP:BLP.

I note Shakehandsman contends that this form of words had been discussed but I can find no record of any such discussion on this talk page or by contending edits on the article itself. This sentence was unchanged from the day he added it a year ago until the day I removed it. Sam Blacketer (talk) 10:47, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Apologies - I meant it has been discussed elsewhere. The process was a clear breach of the sex discrimination act. The fact that shortlists might have later been leglaised really isn't relevant here at all as the law wasn't retrospective and thus did not excuse previous wrongdoings. Clark was selected in 1997, not 2005 (in fact she'd acutally left Parliament by then!).--Shakehandsman (talk) 18:01, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

YouTube video incident
This had been removed, with the edit summary citing "distortion of public persona". Like it or not, this incident did receive a good deal of national media coverage. WP:BLP articles are guided by this, so the incident should not be included simply to make Ms Clark look bad, or left out to make her look good.-- ♦Ian Ma c M♦  (talk to me) 16:59, 25 May 2010 (UTC)


 * The edit history of Maisey12 suggests a possible conflict of interest. The YouTube video incident is included on the grounds of WP:WELLKNOWN. It is cited from three separate reliable sources. Please could Maisey12 clarify whether he/she is linked to Helen Clark in any way.-- ♦Ian Ma c M♦  (talk to me) 08:33, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Recent edits
The source at does not say that both her parents were teachers, only her mother. The link to the video of the bar incident seemed excessive, as she was cleared on appeal. There is some confusion in the sourcing about whether the incident was the result of the refusal of bar staff to serve her or her husband.-- ♦Ian Ma c M♦  (talk to me) 07:39, 23 August 2011 (UTC)