Thatcher statue tweet is not the Sharpe-st ever...

It was heartening to see so many of our political leaders celebrating the significance of women being given the vote 100 years ago.

Current and former women councillors – including Birmingham’s so far only female council leader Theresa Stewart – posed for photographs and wore the suffragette rosettes to commemorate the occasion.

And a series of announcements from Lord Mayor Anne Underwood and the council leader and deputy leader Ian Ward and Brigid Jones ensured that the role of women would continue to be promoted.

The council is to produce a book commemorating women who have made a great contribution to the city and is looking for suggestions.

A Council House committee room will also be named after Dame Ellen Pinsent – Birmingham’s first ever woman councillor who was remarkably elected seven years before women were allowed to vote. But as Cllr Jones pointed out women are still outnumbered two to one in Parliament and the Council Chamber – so their work goes on.

In a not unrelated matter according to the Tory Gary Sambrook one poor Labour member did not seem to happy with the contribution of Britain’s most formidable female politician Margaret Thatcher. Apparently Cllr Mike Sharpe, through his social media, had shared a tweet suggesting in more Anglo-Saxon terms that someone should relieve themselves over her statue.

Labour deputy leader and champion for women in public life Brigid Jones responded that while she disagreed ‘100 per cent’ with Mrs T’s policies she respects her achievement as our first woman Prime Minister.

And added that urinating in public is something which she would never condone. Something on which all corners of the chamber could agree.

Later it transpired, and few who know him will be surprised, that Cllr Sharpe does not manage his own social media. The offending item has been deleted and no doubt the individual responsible spoken to.