Sarah the stealth missile

Media commentators are suddenly falling over themselves to analyse what Sarah Brown is up to, with her increased public profile, her campaign work for the White Ribbon Alliance (www.millionmums.org) and of course her Twittering about issues such as refusing to eat veal at the G8, having fun at Gay Pride and watching The End of the Line.

Some are talking of a rebranding exercise, others are suggesting that she's being used by No. 10 as 'a stealth missile', others that she is positioning herself for life after No. 10, and a job in the charity sector.

I suspect the truth may be rather less complex than the number of column inches suggest. Firstly she's probably just got more used to being the Prime Minister's wife with all that goes with it, and feels more comfortable striking out on her own. But also - she's got two boys, one aged 5 and one who's just turned 3. She's simply doing what many mothers do as their kids get a little bit older, i.e. getting her life back!

Women deliver

Sarah Brown has written an article on maternal health for the Huffington Post (very good US political website). A good piece, and I would say more but got to get down into Chamber soon.

Eric Joyce made a very good contribution on maternal mortality in an adjournment debate on the DRC recently. He'd asked me about it beforehand, said he was worried it might seem a bit 'girlie' (and I can quote him on that because he told me afterwards he'd meant to mention it in his speech but ended up departing from his notes). I told him it wasn't girlie at all and in fact it would be a v. good thing if more male MPs took an interest in the topic. After all, for every mother giving birth, there's a man involved somewhere along the line. (Get the feeling I've said this before - but in a bit of a rush, want to catch the end of Stephen Timms' winding-up speech).

But that conversation and Sarah's article have made me think; maybe it's about time a woman MP made the case for a father's role in the family and bringing up children? I sense another adjournment debate coming on...

She bangs the drums

Just been looking at Sarah Brown's Twitter profile. Most of her tweets - and they are obviously hers, not the work of a Downing Street apparatchik - are about her work on maternal health, which seems to be picking up momentum. Of all the Millennium Development Goals maternal health is the one which is least likely to be met - more than half a million women each year die in childbirth or from pregnancy-related problems - and it really needs a champion, which Sarah is doing by promoting the work of the White Ribbon Alliance. And she manages to get the balance right; despite using her profile to draw attention to the issue, it's still about the cause, not about her - unlike some of the celebrities who align themselves with 'worthy' causes.

She's also obviously interested in other development issues - she's been tweeting today about malaria too. What is also appealing about her 'tweets' is that you get little insights into normal life at Downing Street; she's been planting vegetable seeds with the two boys (at least I assume it's at No. 10, might be Chequers I suppose) and the seed trays are 'peat free', she says. I don't know her at all, but I get the impression that she must be quite clued up about environmental and ethical issues. The press recently reported that she declined to eat veal and foie gras at a banquet at the recent Nato summit in France, which as you can imagine, met with my approval.

And today's Times is saying nice things about her too.