What do you think of Harriet Harman's performance as Shadow ID Minister?

[Jeneral2885]

What do you think of Harriet Harman's performance as Shadow International Development Minister? I see her as not understand what development is: all se cares about is gaining 0.7 of aid (an abstract and outdated figure) and caring only for women's rights (UN Women must get funding despite having no strategic plan yet). On her twitter page, she doesnt even follow the UK's ODI or any big development think tank.

[T_i_B]

1. In all brutal honesty

I'm not overly fussed in the slightest. There are other more important departments out there for the opposition to shadow such as healthcare & housing. Harman's role as Ed Miliband's official deputy is probbably more important then international development.

[Jeneral2885]

2. True

but development is just as important--to all three parties. I think Miliband gave here too many roles and that's why she's flaying around shadowing DFID and giving Mitchell a free pass.

[T_i_B]

3. Wrong.

International Development may be your pet issue, but in no way shape or form is it as important as the NHS, council housing, schools, the police, taxation and so on.

And to be honest, it's more important for the opposition to be shadowing Hague in the foreign office and even Cable in BERR when it comes to international affairs.

[LeftishBrit]

4. Well, I'm not an expert on the details of international development...

though I would say that in many countries, women's rights are in fact quite intrinsic to any hope of real development.

But Harriet Harman has impressed me more in general than I expected at one time. I had bought into some of the stereotypes about her as ineffective. In fact, she was surprisingly good as Acting Leader of the Opposition. Having 5 months of endless Labour leadership battles, fiddling while Dave et al were burning Rome before our eyes, was not a satisfactory situation to put it mildly - but IMO Harriet Harman held the fort well and prevented it from being the disaster that it could have been!

[Jeneral2885]

5. She's making too much od a deal over women's rights

and just focuses on UN Women as if it is the life-saver of all development organisations. I feel they should have passed the Shadow post to someone else like Hugh Bayley or even back to Hilary Benn who did quite a good job as DFID Minister.