Labour WAGs

From the Mail Online:

A group of 'Blair Babes' stands accused today of being the catalyst behind the crisis engulfing Gordon Brown.

Around Westminster they are known as 'the Sisterhood' - a body of female Labour MPs more loyal to each other than their party.

Jacqui Smith, Hazel Blears, Beverley Hughes, Patricia Hewitt, Caroline Flint, Margaret Hodge and Tessa Jowell were at their core; the most highly-promoted - some would argue over-promoted - beneficiaries of the controversial 'women-only' candidate shortlists which saw 101 female Labour MPs elected in Tony Blair's May 1997 general election victory.

But some of the female Labour grandees are now accused of being the driving force behind the unravelling of Mr Brown's premiership.

Back in the halcyon days of New Labour, they were happy to pose en masse for photographs as 'Blair's Babes'. How they all loved Tony and basked in the warmth of his patronage.

But when he stood down two years ago, the Blairite Sisters grew disgruntled at the diminished role women were given in Gordon Brown's Cabinet.

And so they came to acquire a new nickname: The WAGs - the oh-so-witty acronym that played on the 'Wives And Girlfriends' of overpaid footballers tag and which stood for 'Women Against Gordon'.

Now, months of seething rancour and regular WAGs' 'whingeing sessions' over pesto and pasta meals washed down with glasses of chianti coalesced into something more lethal - a concerted assassination attempt on the Prime Minister. The Night of the Long Stilettos.