Happy International Women’s Day

Happy International Women’s Day. Every year, Guido looks back on the groundbreaking strides our leading political parties have made in female representation over the last few decades. This year is particularly special, as this is the first International Women’s Day since the UK added its third female Prime Minister to the scoreboard. It still counts.

Of course this does mean the Tories have provided all three lady PMs. Still, at least almost all the other parties have elected a female leader by now. Here are the trailblazers:

  • Conservative Party, Margaret Thatcher, 1975
  • Green Party, Jean Lambert, 1992
  • Welsh Nationalists, Leanne Wood, 2012
  • Scottish Nationalists, Nicola Sturgeon, 2014
  • Democratic Unionist Party, Arlene Foster, 2015
  • UKIP, Diane James, 2016
  • Liberal Democrats, Jo Swinson, 2019
  • Labour Party, NA, NA

Almost every party. Almost.

mdi-timer 8 March 2023 @ 14:06 8 Mar 2023 @ 14:06 mdi-twitter mdi-facebook mdi-whatsapp mdi-telegram mdi-linkedin mdi-email mdi-comment View Comments
Self-Aggrandising Sadiq Takes Charge of Struggling Feminist Movement

The history of Parliament Square’s Millicent Fawcett statue is a long, women-driven one:

  • In 2016, feminist journalist Caroline Perez launched a campaign to install a female statue in Parliament Square after noticing the lack of female representation amongst the plinths.
  • The Fawcett Society latched onto the campaign and in May an open letter signed by 42 prominent women was sent to the mayor’s office requesting a suffragette statue be erected in the square by 2018.
  • Sadiq Khan agreed to the need for said statue, though wouldn’t commit to it being in Parliament Square.
  • In the end a petition got 78,000 signatures and Westminster Council granted a planning application.
  • Then-communities secretary Sajid Javid, and PM Theresa May, supported the campaign.

This potted history was too complex for Sadiq Khan’s Twitter feed…

A self-promoting Khan celebrated International Women’s Day this morning by boasting about all the wonderful things he has done for London’s women – including presiding over the Millicent Fawcett statue:

It all reminded Guido of the classic Onion article, “Man Finally Put In Charge of Struggling Feminist Movement”. Women hold up half the sky, though Sadiq does most of the heavy lifting…

mdi-timer 8 March 2021 @ 16:59 8 Mar 2021 @ 16:59 mdi-twitter mdi-facebook mdi-whatsapp mdi-telegram mdi-linkedin mdi-email mdi-comment View Comments
Happy International Women’s Day

On today’s International Women’s Day, Guido thought it was time to celebrate the first female leaders of significant political parties in the UK. The timeline of trailblazers is:

  • Conservative Party, Margaret Thatcher, 1975
  • Green Party, Jean Lambert, 1992
  • Welsh Nationalists, Leanne Wood, 2012
  • Scottish Nationalists, Nicola Sturgeon, 2014
  • Democratic Unionist Party, Arlene Foster, 2015
  • UKIP, Diane James, 2016
  • Liberal Democrats, Jo Swinson, 2019
  • [Labour Party, NA, NA]

Unless Sir Keir has a big announcement to make, sadly the Labour Party can’t yet properly participate in this list…

mdi-timer 8 March 2021 @ 14:20 8 Mar 2021 @ 14:20 mdi-twitter mdi-facebook mdi-whatsapp mdi-telegram mdi-linkedin mdi-email mdi-comment View Comments
Womens’ Advance in Politics

Guido has crunched the numbers for International Women’s Day, looking at the historic dataset for British Prime Minister’s stretching back to Walpole. Despite the brocialists claims to be the party to advance the status of women, they have never in all their history elected a woman leader, in fact in every Labour Party leadership election women candidates have always got the least votes from the brocialist membership. In every single Labour leadership election, ever.

Nor have the Liberal Democrats or their Liberal Party predecessor’s had a women leader. It is quite something to think that every woman Tory leader has become PM and every woman Labour leadership candidate has got the least votes from the Labour Party membership. Happy International Women’s Day!

mdi-timer 8 March 2019 @ 12:06 8 Mar 2019 @ 12:06 mdi-twitter mdi-facebook mdi-whatsapp mdi-telegram mdi-linkedin mdi-email mdi-comment View Comments
Happy #IWD2018

Maybe one day a woman will be elected leader of the Labour Party…

mdi-timer 8 March 2018 @ 09:40 8 Mar 2018 @ 09:40 mdi-twitter mdi-facebook mdi-whatsapp mdi-telegram mdi-linkedin mdi-email mdi-comment View Comments
Guests Given 4 Hours Notice For Corbyn’s Hastily Organised #IWD2018 Event

25 minutes after Jezza was accused by Theresa May of “mansplaining” International Women’s Day at PMQs, the Leader’s Office fired off this invitation to a hastily-organised reception to recognise the occasion. With the event scrabbled together at the last minute, guests were given just four hours to RSVP and were expected to cancel their plans and make it to Westminster that same evening. Fair to say it went down pretty badly – here is anti-FGM campaigner Nimco Ali:

In the end only a small group of largely Westminster based staff made it to the reception to hear Jezza. Surely the brocialists didn’t forget?

mdi-timer 8 March 2018 @ 08:35 8 Mar 2018 @ 08:35 mdi-twitter mdi-facebook mdi-whatsapp mdi-telegram mdi-linkedin mdi-email mdi-comment View Comments
Previous Page Next Page