Female MPs march to a different tune today
WHILE watching Baroness Fookes walk at the head of the War Widows’ Association in the March Past on Remembrance Sunday at the Cenotaph, I was driven to reflect on the quality and dignity of the women who once graced the House of Commons. Janet Fookes, once the MP for a Plymouth seat, is now 86 but she walked from Trafalgar Square to the Cenotaph without flinching and goodness knows for how long before that she was standing about waiting for the march to begin.
When I was elected in 1987, there were only 41 women in total in the House but they were serious, formidable and had beaten the men to get there.
The female MPs of yesteryear included Margaret Thatcher, Barbara Castle, Shirley Williams, Betty Boothroyd, Jo Richardson, Clare Short and Lynda Chalker. Then came positive discrimination and a host of mini-skirted wonders. The walk along Downing Street became a fashion parade.
IT’S IMPOSSIBLE to imagine any of the aforementioned announcing she had a “boob job” as did Angela Rayner in the press recently, or moaning about the menopause or crying “misogyny” at the first parliamentary mauling.We were there to do a job and, as did the men, we just got on with it. While on the subject of the March Past, where were the Gurkhas? They must surely have been there but nobody I have spoken to remembers seeing them. Government also missed an opportunity by not having the Afghan interpreters there. They were vital for our troops in that war and should have been honoured. They will already be feeling bruised by the way they were left to their fate until the last moment, which meant some were left behind. Participation in the March Past would have both given them a sense of being valued and a sense of what being British means, something they must surely question while languishing in hotels. That aside, the occasion was as usual an impressive display of service and patriotism, as was the ceremony at the Royal Albert Hall the previous night. God save the King.