Janet Street Porter-Do Shut Up Love!

As you know, myself and some fellow Mummy Bloggers had the pleasure (well, sort of) of having our (censored) views expressed on the coming election in the Indie on Sunday.

Now, with all the madness and general disdain that followed at them not covering what we'd said or the points we actually felt most important (which is why my Nan passed on this pearl of wisdom from my Great Uncle, who was once a Freelancer himself-"always get copy approval, or what you say will be wrung out and spat out"), I hadn't read the rest of the paper.

In fact, as Ed the ex had been at a daytime party (a fogey rave as I call it as they're too old to rave at night anymore), I didn't sit down and read it until just before X Factor.

I got to Janet Street Porters Editor at Large Column, and having grown up seeing this horsey toothed loud mouth on TV, thought I'd have a read.

Under the title "The Internet is no place to fight a general election" (and can be read in full here), Janet decided to basically harangue Mothers everywhere, especially us on the net via MumsNet and other similar sites.

One of her quotes made me absolutely livid, and question whether she'd actually gone back through the whole chat that Mum's at Mumsnet had with Gordon Brown. Picking up on the now yawnsome "Biscuit-gate" episode, which Mum's have already expressed anger that the weightier issues they brought up where ignored in favour of the PMs reluctance to mention his favourite biscuit of choice, she says his failure to name  it for 24 hours-

...doesn't make him a lesser politician in my book, but someone with a slightly weightier agenda than some of the nappy-rash gang on Mumsnet.

So angry at this point with the story, I had to make myself a cup of coffee (would've had a large glass of wine except we had none in the house).

She then continues to describe the same chatrooms verdict on David Cameron's live chat-

Cameron's critics claim he took too long to answer – well, nowt wrong with thinking before you articulate a response to a serious question. Sadly this is a relatively rare occurrence in chatrooms, and cyberspace has become a tidal wave of illiterate twaddle and knee-jerk reactions. Every time Cameron answered one mumsnetter, 10 more were trying to get through, so not surprisingly people were disgruntled. In the end, technology let him down and caused the delays. Reading through the debate, his answers are surprisingly coherent and direct. Sadly, going on Mumsnet is the modern equivalent of entering the gladiatorial arena – you're never going to win, and the crowd will just bay for your blood.

Err, Pardon?

So, now, because we Mum's use the net to discuss our views, we are spouting "Illiterate twaddle"? She even has the nerve to comment that she feels David Milliband may end up in the jungle-well, since she herself went on the show, isn't this a case of pot, kettle, black syndrome? Or would Janet have us illiterate fluffy celeb junkie mothers believe that she did it to prove a point on the celeb-ness, rather than as a way of widespread self-promotion like the rest of them?

Well, frankly I think she has a bloody nerve!

Considering she didn't have any problem with her staff writers posting urgent requests to us as individuals and on British Mummy Bloggers' for help for her paper, surely the article she wrote was very ill timed, and should never have been run? Considering also that we didn't get paid a penny, just did it out of our usual goodwill, I think she owes us an apology.