Brady buries feminist principles in the sand
BORIS JOHNSON isn’t the only Tory engaged on a charm offensive with Saudi Arabia.
Just weeks before the PM’s oil-begging visit to the human rights-loving Kingdom last Thursday, Baroness (Karren) Brady of TV’s The Apprentice fame was in the Saudi capital (pocketing a fee plus free flights and accommodation) to speak ‘on the importance of women in business and female entrepreneurship’.
Other speakers at the Riyadh tech conference included the deputy chairman of Chinese electronics giant Huawei and the Saudi energy minister.
This is the same Baroness Brady who quit Philip Green’s retail empire’s board after he was accused of sexually harassing female staff – something he vigorously denied. Brady said she couldn’t ‘square’ her feminist credentials with working for Sir Shifty.
Yet Saudi Arabia continues to allow men to file lawsuits against women for ‘disobedience’, detains female activists and requires women to seek a man’s permission to start a business or leave a domestic abuse shelter. They have,
however, graciously been allowed to drive.
Though silent about her trip, the 52-year-old businesswoman, whose full title is Baroness Brady of Knightsbridge (even though she is
vice-chairman of West Ham FC), has now spoken more times in Saudi Arabia than she has in the House of Lords over the past two years.
Her only contribution in the Chamber was on a Women’s Day debate
last year when she urged us all to ‘celebrate the progress that we continue to make on our long march to empowerment and equality’. A long march indeed for the women of Saudi Arabia.