MRS T KNOCKED OFF THE TOP SPOT

A CENTURY after some women first got the vote, senior politicians have written in The house, parliament’s magazine, about the women they have most admired.

lord Fowler, a Cabinet minister under Margaret Thatcher and John Major, who is now Speaker in the Upper house, surprisingly chose the relatively obscure Baroness Swanborough. ‘nancy astor was the first woman to take her seat in the Commons, but who was the first woman life Peer to take her seat on the red benches?’ he asks, before revealing that it was Baroness Swanborough, aka Stella Isaacs, in 1958.

I wonder how much Mrs T would have appreciated being bumped off the top of his list. Cue a handbagging from beyond the grave.