Under-fire Flint tap dances into trouble

Caroline Flint, the tap-dancing Housing Minister who yesterday told the Guardian that people who live in council houses should be forced to look for jobs as a condition of their tenancy, is in deep water with her boss, Gordon Brown. He only promoted her to the Cabinet a fortnight ago, and already he's having to distance himself from her comments, described as Dickensian by housing experts and Labour backbenchers alike.

One of the so-called 'Blair Babes' - the influx of young women MPs who came into Parliament with the 1997 New Labour landslide - 46-year-old Flint has a reputation as a busybody. She was christened 'Supernanny' for crusading against alcohol abuse, smoking in public places, obesity and teen pregnancies after her appointment as Public Health Minister in 2006. Despite her good looks - the sexiest member of parliament, some say - she quickly became a hate figure among those who dislike the state interfering in people's lives.

When she suggested warning pregnant women about their drink consumption with labels on bottles of wine, Boris Johnson scornfully noted that she was a junior minister "anxious to make a name for herself". Other columnists have labeled her self-righteous, a goody-two-shoes, and have made fun of her membership alongside Hazel Blears in the Division Belles tap-dance troupe.

Where does this zeal come from? A glance at Flint's upbringing provides an explanation of her motives. Her mother, Wendy Beasley, was an unmarried 17-year-old typist when Caroline was born in 1961. Life in her grandparents' (presumably smoky) Twickenham pub, the Jolly Blacksmith, wasn't easy. Though she was adopted as a toddler by Peter Flint when he married her mother, they split when Caroline was 13. When she was 28, Wendy died of a liver disease, which may have been caused by excessive drinking.

Yesterday, Adam Sampson, boss of Shelter, said Flint's comments suggested the Labour government "wants to return Britain's unemployed to the workhouse by throwing them on to the streets. What is being proposed would destroy families and communities and add to the thousands who are already homeless". Whatever her excuses, Caroline Flint has put her foot in it.