Melanie McDonagh in The Observer | Comment comments that the Hutton report is about games in the boys' playground. I do believe that there are, in general, differences between the way men, in general, and women, in general, 'do' politics. But this is not the analysis. It took me five readings to understand this sentence:
The elements that appeal to the nerdy, detail-obsessed, slightly autistic and testosterone-sensitive personality that is the political male are stamped all over the Hutton affair.
Then I realised: I am a 'nerdy, detail-obsessed, slightly autistic and testosterone-sensitive personality' and I suppose my track record would describe me as a political female. She ruins her crass gender analysis by reference to Rebekah Wade and Tessa Jowell who are both quite capable of playing dirty with the boys. (And my mother described Margaret Beckett on Question Time as a 'patronising bitch'.)
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