Election '97: Problem of image for the ideal Labour candidate

Barbara Follett should be an ideal Labour candidate. She is credited with transforming the party's image, made a laudable attempt in Emily's List to get more women into Parliament, and has an exemplary history in voluntary work.

Yet since the 54-year-old wife of millionaire author Ken Follett first entered the British political fray, she been dismissed as a "Labour luvvie" and "champagne socialist", derided for Emily's List, and branded Labour's lipsticked colour coding candidate. In short, she has an image problem.

Ms Follett is resigned to bad press. Her years in South Africa, where her first husband was assassinated, have left her with substantial body armour. "One of the things that turns women off politics is what they call public scrutiny, which, when when you get down to it, is public misrepresentation," she says. "It doesn't bother me, because you get to feel that there's a truth and even if you're being misrepresented it shouldn't touch you."

What irritates her more is the champagne socialism tag, which invariably accompanies her and her fourth husband [who has postponed his bestsellers to write her press releases]. "I never even drink champagne. I can't drink - it makes me ill," she says. "I'm more a cappuccino socialist."

As for Follett-as-image-guru: "It was a tiny part of my life ... I did it because it was probably necessary and it's much more about what Mother said before you went out - have-you-got-a-clean-hanky type stuff ... I gave it up after four years, because it was actually so boring." After two previous attempts to get a seat, she spent the past two years campaigning for Stevenage, Labour's 37th target seat.

When the Folletts bought a cottage in her prospective constituency, she faced accusations that it was simply a springboard to a parliamentary career. She admits: "It's not the most obvious place for me to be. People see me as a rich bitch in a poor town

A swing of only 2.66 per cent will return Stevenage to Labour for the first time since Shirley Williams was defeated in 1979. "We've done about 88 per cent of the (66,000) constituency and we're now re-canvassing. We'd done 20,000 by last night." Her daughters say she approaches politics like she approached clearing out their rooms. She starts at 6am, reels off voters' concerns in statistical order of priority - "jobs, education, housing, health ...", jokes about her "inefficient" doorstepping and plans her schedules on daily and weekly grids.

"This is a place that has suffered dreadfully under the Tories in the last 18 years. It has suffered job losses equivalent to five pit closures," she says. "People here believed that they would have houses for their children, and jobs, and they feel very betrayed." She wears a union badge given to her by one of the new town's original builders - "some of the best men I've ever met".

Locally, at least, Ms Follett's approach appears to be paying off. In last week's poll she was 27 per cent ahead. Now even the traditionally Conservative Old Town turns up supporters. Karen Leverington, a mother of two, decided Ms Follett "had her finger on the pulse" when she saw her petitioning for their rail services. Stevenage, she said, wanted someone who really "stuck up" for the town - "and she would."

This is where Ms Follett's blanket canvassing makes sense; those who have met her generally support her; those who haven't still deride her. Either way, no one can say she hasn't tried. One is left with the feeling that her campaign team, by guarding her, are actually doing her a disservice - something reiterated by Mrs Leverington. "You know, if more people only spoke to her then they'd know what she's really like."