I am delighted to be the author of three essays in this book on the women of Parliament. I have written about Rosie Duffield, Thangam Debbonaire and Jo Platt.
The book can be bought here.
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Labour’s campaign was hoping for a big boost last week. It didn’t quite happen. As the party launched its manifesto and Jeremy Corbyn achieved a draw in the TV debate with Boris Johnson, supporters hoped that the kind of radical turnaround seen (but not believed) at about this point during the 2017 campaign would happen again.
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Yesterday, Labour launched a manifesto that promised an inquiry into "fake news".
The day started with Jeremy Corbyn telling off his supporters for booing the BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg. Them the London Evening Standard had to retract a seemingly false quote attributed to Corbyn on anti-Semitism.
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At the last election, Labour were criticised for having very little to say on welfare. The sharpest end of Tory austerity has always been felt by those who rely on the state to live a decent life. And, increasingly, more and more people who do so are living in the most awful circumstances. In-work poverty has risen from 13 per cent to 18 per cent. An estimated 500,000 more people are in poverty due to the benefits cap and two-child policy (where families that have two or more children, including one born after 6 April 2017, see the child element in Universal Credit and tax credits limited to the first two children). People with disabilities represent 48 per cent of all people who live in poverty. The use of food banks has increased dramatically.
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Boris Johnson wants you to believe two contradictory things simultaneously. Firstly, that Brexit is going to be easy and be done and dusted within a year. At the same time, Brexit is all-encompassing and the only thing that must be discussed at this election.
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In 1997 I voted for the first time, in the constituency of Canterbury. Even in the landslide of Tony Blair's first win, it wasn't a seat that was going to go Labour. But 20 years later, in 2017, it did. By fewer than 200 votes, Rosie Duffield won the seat for the first time in history, ousting the 30 year incumbent Julian Brazier.
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The Tory election campaign is not – so far – going well. Kicking off with a Boris Johnson editorial in the Telegraph that looked like someone forgot to remove the hyperlink from the front page and continuing with an ongoing row over Tory MPs insulting the memories of the victims of Grenfell.
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Labour HQ will be asking themselves two questions today: Can we stop this from being a Brexit election and should we try?
It seems from the outset that the answer to the first question is likely to be no. That makes the second part redundant.
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When people ask me what my favourite book is, I always say The Women’s Room. It is definitely the book that has made the biggest impression on my life and thinking. But it isn’t the book I read most often. The book I return to like an old friend, year in, year out, is a daft potboiler called Fortunes. It’s a rivalry between stepsisters vying to inherit an auction house. It’s silly and frivolous and wonderful.
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David Cameron used to describe himself as the heir to Blair. In some facile ways this was true. They both had an approach to politics that was more about media management than a commitment to an ideology. They were both fairly proud centrists – on the internal edges of the places where their parties met the country. While on domestic economic policy they differed somewhat – particularly after the 2008 crash which Cameron used to undo much of Blair’s previous investment instincts – on domestic social policy areas like gay rights, Cameron delighted in going against the small c instincts of the Conservatives.
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The Queen’s Speech was delivered today in a clear pre-election bid by Boris Johnson. However, over a third of the 26 bills announced are post-Brexit fixes.
There will also be new regimes for agriculture, fisheries and the end of Freedom of Movement. A bill will also allow for the UK to arrest criminals subject to warrants from ‘trusted countries’ – which will replace the EU arrest warrant. However, it is unclear if and how this would be reciprocal.
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If all the world’s a stage, that clearly includes my kitchen and living room. And so it was earlier this month, when my flat became an immersive theatre venue for a night as I hosted a preview of Any One Thing’s latest production Souvenir.
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Nearly 200 women staged a breastfeeding sit-in outside Downing Street Thursday as part of the ongoing Extinction Rebellion protests.
A spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion said “This is an action that shows that at the heart of this is the most basic of instincts: to protect our young, the protect the most vulnerable – the next generation.”
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When I was invited to attend a week-long festival of Ukrainian and Polish theatre in Poznan, I was slightly nervous. I don’t speak either language and so reviewing would be a tough gig. But on the other hand, how often do you get an opportunity to travel and challenge yourself in this way?
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Willpower is a strange and complicated concept – especially when it comes to losing weight. Those who don’t lose weight are judged not to have it – and judged constantly.
It is rarely a trait that people fully understand themselves, yet it is an attribute that is conferred on them. I have lost weight, therefore I have willpower. I am, it is concluded, morally superior to those who have not; I have some quality they don’t.
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