Yesterday, former Labour MP Paula Privilege, in admirably nonpartisan fashion, blogged about misogyny in connection with the death of Margaret Thatcher. By all means, said Saint Paula, criticize Thatcher’s harsh treatment of the unions if you wish, and her warmongering in the Falklands (sic), but don’t call her a witch, because that language is sexist and debasing of women. I was amused to learn that this was Saint Paula’s opinion, in the light of something she’d tweeted to her 68,000 Twitter followers on April 8, the day Baroness Maggie died. After reading her blog post that railed against the use of witchy imagery in connection with the unfairer sex, even if they happen to be one’s political opponents, I trawled back through Saint Paula’s tweets to see if she’d deleted the one that revealed her true feelings on the matter. These, I think, can be summarized neatly: “It’s wrong to compare women to witches, unless I do it, in which case it’s OK.”

Here’s what Saint Paula tweeted on April 8:

Paula Riddiough @politixpaula
Finally, room on the broom! For strong but compassionate women in politics. Never celebrate death. Always celebrate hope for the future.

She hadn’t deleted the tweet, and must either have forgotten about it by the time she wrote her blog post a week later or else she assumed no one would notice the disparity. For the culturally excluded among you, Room on the Broom is a bestselling picture book by Julia Donaldson, author of such children’s classics as The Gruffalo and Tiddler. The broom in question belongs to a witch. I shall spell it out for the hard-of-believing-a-leftie-can-ever-put-a-foot-wrong: Saint Paula’s tweet unequivocally implies that Margaret Thatcher was a witch and that, by dying, she has made room for superior women like Paula herself in the political sphere. But the meaning goes further than that: Paula’s tweet suggests that the compassionate women who might take Thatcher’s place would also be sitting on the broom. All women in politics are witches, are they, Paula? What, even the ones who empathize with Argentinian dictators partial to purloining islands that don’t belong to them?

I couldn’t resist embroiling Her Saintliness in a Twitter debate on the subject:

Damon Blundy @blunderfulme
@politixpaula Saw your room on the broom tweet. Read your blog today. So which is it—OK or not OK to compare women to witches?

Paula Riddiough @politixpaula
@blunderfulme Not okay. Good point, I hadn’t spotted that. I apologize, and will delete tweet.

Damon Blundy @blunderfulme
@politixpaula Your instinct, on hearing of death of one of UK’s greatest women, was to tweet misogynistically, in a way you profess to find unacceptable. Hypocrite!

Paula Riddiough @politixpaula
@blunderfulme I’d be a hypocrite if I tried to defend my original tweet. I’ve apologized for it and have now deleted it.