And sticking the knife into Jeremy Corbyn
comes under the most sustained attack. Well, she did once say she’d “knife him in the front” when the time came. Phillips accuses the Labour leader of treating female MPs like “arm candy” and calls for him to “bloody well publish an equal pay audit” of his office staff. Her philosophical criticism is that Labour’s hard Left sees equality as “an add-on” to class struggle rather than a goal in itself. “I think the leadership looks down on women as a group of patronised poor people who need the big, important, clever men to come and save them.” Even now she fears Labour isn’t ready for a female leader.
Before she entered parliament, Phillips worked for the charity Women’s Aid, and she continues to speak up for domestic-violence victims. A year ago, she read out in the Commons the names of the 120 women killed by men in the previous 12 months. Her writing on violence here is just as powerful, especially where she answers the refrain “Why doesn’t she just leave?” Fear of being murdered is a common reason.
There’s joy in Everywoman too. Phillips is enormously appreciative of the women who came before her, feeling Harriet Harman passed on the baton when she warned “you will never be popular” — and is a big believer in the sisterhood. That latter idea is tinged with sadness, though: Jo Cox — a passionate advocate for sorority — was a friend. Phillips wrote to Cox’s children after their mother’s death: “Love is how I will remember your Mum. We walked shoulder to shoulder into the fray.”
I suspect Everywoman has been rushed out (misspellings such as Sheryl Sandberg’s name hint at that), but that’s my only niggle. Being an MP has given Phillips a platform, and if this book inspires just one teenager to switch from partying to politics, it will have been well used. This is one book I’m glad an MP has written.