After McBride, Gordon must listen to the women in his life

The word is that Damian McBride is not to be replaced within the Downing Street spin machine – not for the moment, anyway. So is this the moment for another PR expert close to Prime Minister Gordon Brown to do her bit – his wife Sarah Brown?

Remember, it was Sarah who stepped forward at the point of greatest danger to Brown's leadership and introduced him at last year's Labour Party conference. Every day, she told delegates, she saw her husband "motivated to work for the best interests of people around the country. Sometimes in a world where there is so much to do we might not perhaps spend enough time to celebrate what has been done".

Whatever messes her husband may have found himself in since – that G20 summit triumph seems a very long time ago – Sarah Brown has not put a foot wrong. She enjoys a far more favourable public image than her predecessor, Cherie Blair. She is the patron of the domestic violence charity Women's Aid and of Maggie's Cancer Caring Centre. She is a close friend of J.K. Rowling (who donated £1m to the Labour Party in 2008). She may have been overshadowed by Michelle Obama – and, in her way, Carla Bruni – but she has never been made to look small, or inconsequential. She can certainly expect a major role during the run-up to the next general election, extolling her husband's virtues.

But there could be more she can do. Damien McBride's planned smear campaign has exposed the macho, beer-and-football world of Brown's acolytes. As Rachel Sylvester wrote in the Times earlier this week, "It is not surprising that Mr McBride begins his e-mail with the word 'Gents' – the underlying misogyny of the rumours he was trying to spread is one of the most shocking aspects of the whole thing".

One senior female politician on Brown's team tracked down by the Mole this week (Parliament has been in recess during McBridegate) brought up the misogyny too: she made it clear that by seeking to slander Frances Osborne, the shadow chancellor's wife, who is not even a politician, McBride's actions would be a huge-turn-off to female voters as well as infuriating leading women in the party like Harriet Harman, Margaret Beckett and, we can assume, Sarah Brown too.

The sort of dirty tactics advocated by McBride are off the agenda now. The boys must put away their toys.

Before McBridegate, there was a widespread perception among Labour MPs that Cameron and Osborne had had a "bad recession", making a series of pronouncements which, if they had been in a position to implement them, would have made the downturn deeper and longer. Yet still the Tories lead in the polls, fueling Labour MPs' frustration that they have failed to get the public to share that perception.

If Gordon Brown is to have any chance of scraping through the next general election then he needs to take on the Conservatives in the economic arena, where he is convinced Cameron is more vulnerable than he looks. And he's going to needs women like Yvette Cooper, Harman and Beckett - responsible for tackling Conservative economic performance when Labour was in opposition in the 1990s - to carry the fight to the Tories.

In short, it's time Gordon started listening to the women in his life.

THE MOLE: MCBRIDEGATE

FIRST POSTED APRIL 16, 2009