Forum Topic

Ladies only

Following up on my earlier post, asking about the state of the Reeves brain, I notice she is reported as demanding that only paintings of or by women should be hung in her office. The Guardian loves the idea, of course, but again I am wondering what kind of narrowness of perception (or maybe I should say prejudice) is afflicting the Chancellor.

Alexander MacLeod ● 99d30 Comments

It crossed my mind that Johnson might have liked "lady pictures" on the walls of #10, but possibly more in line with Townshend's "Pictures of Lilly" than those Ms Reeves has in mind ...

Michael Ixer ● 91d

Clifford: Sorry, I missed your earlier post re lady pictures. No, I am not prejudiced. I just think the surge for feminism in all possible directions is getting a bit ridiculous. Why not choose pictures because of their quality/beauty rather than their gender?

Alexander MacLeod ● 91d

.... it was not until 1983 that the government of Margaret Thatcher adopted a new policy of care after the Audit Commission published a report called 'Making a Reality of Community Care' which outlined.....https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Care_in_the_Community#:~:text=Institutional%20care%20was%20the%20target,outlined%20the%20advantages%20of%20domiciliary

Ivonne Holliday ● 91d

Sorry I missposted !Wrong year, right political Party.'Higher education tuition fees of £1,000 per year were first introduced by the Labour Government in 1998. These fees were paid upfront by students at the start of the academic year. In 2006 fees were raised to £3,000 and a new system of variable deferred fees and tuition fees loans was introduced'.Sir Kier Flipflop of course had a policy (or two) to address this iniquitous state of affairs.BBC May 2023'Labour is set to abandon its promise to scrap university tuition fees in England if it wins power, its leader has said.Sir Keir Starmer told BBC Radio 4's Today programme the party was "likely to move on from that commitment", blaming the economic backdrop.The Labour leader pledged to support getting rid of fees in his 2020 leadership campaign.But he now said the party was looking at alternative options for funding'.Love the term 'move on'.Starmerese for 'ditch'.Oh and of course it's all because of Reeves the Chancellor of the Exchequer and now it seems the Cosmos, discovering the 'black hole'.

John Hawkes ● 92d

1988?

Michael Ixer ● 92d

'She went to Oxbridge because of her brains and not her connections'.Oxford actually to give them credit at the time.And she read chemistry and worked as an industrial chemist, a subject and profession seen as very male biased.But in a fit of early wokism which the university is unfortunately now very prone, they got her at he end.'1985: Thatcher snubbed by Oxford dons - BBC NewsOxford University has delivered a stunning snub to the Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher by refusing her an honorary degree.Academics have led a campaign against honouring Mrs Thatcher in protest against the government's cuts in funding for education.The vote against the prime minister was much higher than expected 738 to 319 and was greeted with cheers by students who handed in a 5,000 signature petition.It means she becomes the first Oxford-educated prime minister since the war to be denied the honour.Over 1,000 academics and administrators packed into the ticket-only meeting last night.The call to bestow an honorary doctorate of civil law on Mrs Thatcher, who obtained a second-class honours degree in chemistry at Somerville college, Oxford, in 1947, provoked a two-hour debate behind closed doors'. In 1988 LABOUR introduced tuition fees !

John Hawkes ● 92d

'That was all it was. She hardly helped to make it any easier for any other women though, did she?'What did she do to prevent other women achieving what she did ?

John Hawkes ● 92d

Thatcher did not refer to 'community' but to 'society'."I think we have gone through a period when too many children and people have been given to understand ‘I have a problem, it is the Government’s job to cope with it!’ or ‘I have a problem, I will go and get a grant to cope with it!’ ‘I am homeless, the Government must house me!’ and so they are casting their problems on society and who is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first".Would anyone disagree providing those that genuinely have no family, likely to be only orphans or elderly, are supported by the state as necessary ?

John Hawkes ● 92d

'But they remove Mrs Thatchers portrait.!!'Shows they are not feminists at all as they decry and dismiss the UK's and Europe's first, and in the UK's case only, female PM.As Orwell might have said "All women are equal, but some women are more equal than others".

John Hawkes ● 92d

'It’s a silly example of gesture politics'.All we have these days.Policy "is borin' 'innit".

John Hawkes ● 92d

Hello Philippa,Do you remember the state of this country in the late 70s?  The rubbish collectors on strike and Picaddilly Circus was a sea of black bin bags?  Thank goodness it was winter, cold and snowy.Do you by any chance remember her saying that the Government does not have any money?  All the money it has was through the collection of taxes.  I also seem to remember that she won the election in '79 mainly on the grounds of restricting the power the unions had over the government.  She came to power after the three-day week and the winter of discontent.  Thatcher did not destroy the NHS.  I agree that she started outsourcing the ancilliary services in 1983.  The true privatisation of the NHS started in 2012, though PFI was introduced in 2012.So, while many things have gone badly wrong in the last 15 to 20 years, they were not Thatcher's fault but of subsequent governments.

Ivonne Holliday ● 93d

Well exactly - that IS what SHE achieved of note!  But the rest - the selling everything off, the reduction and destruction of all things publicly owned swimming pools, libraries, NHS, care homes and so much more in pursuit of her neo-liberal dream of few regulations, free market, low taxes which together with the trickle down myth just creates a greater divide between rich and  poor.  That each-man-for-his-own me-me-me world is something that is now coming back to haunt us in our increasingly small and dangerous world.

Philippa Bond ● 93d

1000% agree! No, not a mistake...

Ivonne Holliday ● 93d

Thanks Ivonne for agreeing with me.  I think as a female PM, the boss of a Cabinet full or mostly full of men, she was a role model that a woman could get to the top, even in politics.  
Didn’t she also face snobbery too because her father was a shopkeeper? She went to Oxbridge because of her brains and not her connections.  
Her rise to the top job does not deserve to be belittled.  

Martine Guy ● 93d

I agree, Martine.She was in a man's world and my hat off to her for her achievements!I wonder why she was nicknamed "The Iron Lady"?It is also ridiculous to say she did not progress matters for women.  As far as I remember, the subject was not in vogue when she became Prime Minister.  I think Maggie Thatcher deserves being held at the height of the best and proper politicians, just as Churchill is.  Different times but they were amazing PMs for the UK at their respective times.

Ivonne Holliday ● 93d

Excuse me Philippa, but that is totally wrong!!!!Just as one example, what do you think care in the community was?  A lunatic assylum?

Ivonne Holliday ● 93d

It was her very presence as the first female PM that helped to get more respect for women in the workplace.  I’ve never understood the opinion that she should have helped other women.  If she had done so and complained/moaned repeatedly about women not being treated equally, her critics would have told her to stop nagging!  Her dignity and strength in her job did so much to help other women get on.

Martine Guy ● 93d

That was all it was. She hardly helped to make it any easier for any other women though, did she?

Philippa Bond ● 93d

Spot on Martine, didnt like her much but by crickey what an achievement in those days.

Andy Pike ● 94d

Philippa, are you talking about Margaret Thatcher when you say “she only broke a glass ceiling”? ONLY!  It was an incredible achievement for her to become the first female P.M.  You are belittling what she did.  I can remember the sexism in the workplace in the 1970s and 1980s and it must have been really bad in politics and parliament.  Love her or loathe her, total respect for what she did. It is something no female Labour MP has managed yet.

Martine Guy ● 94d

What Margaret Thatcher actually  said (in an interview with 'Woman's Own' in 1987)is that there is no such thing as society. She took the view that society is a construct often used to explain some social evil, as in the phrase 'society is to blame'. She believed that what we call society society is nothing other than individual men and women who should take responsibility for their actions.

Steven Rose ● 94d

She wouldn't be the only one to not like Mrs Thatcher.  She only broke a glass ceiling.  She was very famous for saying that 'There is no such thing as community'.  Wishful thinking perhaps? There is such a thing.

Philippa Bond ● 94d

Well, Starmer doesn't like women and she doesn't like men.

Barbara Stevens ● 94d

But they remove Mrs Thatchers portrait.!!

Andy Pike ● 94d

I think it is great that she wants to change the pictures in her office to reassert and remind herself and others of the inspirational women and game-changers to Govt that she wants to surround her as she works.

Philippa Bond ● 94d

Surely Rachel Reeves is making it a ‘political/gender issue’ by insisting that only works by female painters or with female subjects should hang in her office.  If she had merely requested pictures which she particularly liked, which happened to be by or about women, no one would have commented. It’s a silly example of gesture politics.

Steven Rose ● 94d

Alexander - Ministers can request what they like from the Government Art Collection to adorn their office - I do not understand why you seem to be making this a political/gender issue - do you have a particular prejudice?

Clifford Cowell ● 95d

Rachel Reeves began her speech to the Labour Party Conference with what she believes is her most important contribution as Chancellor, namely, yes, becoming Cancellor, the first woman to hold the office. 'Delegates, I promised you last year that I would be the first female Chancellor. I have fulfilled that promise'. Cue: resounding cheers. Self regarding twaddle from a former junior banker, promoted well above her abilities, who has no clue how to run the economy other than to give the state sector unions pay awards above the rate of inflation and to pay for them by removing winter fuel  allowance from millions of pensioners.

Steven Rose ● 95d

'Women have been so under-represented in Parliament in the past why not celebrate an increase in equality here?'Why is denigrating and vanishing any reference to male predecessors (just as the Russian Communist Party did when removing images of previous colleagues from official Politburo photos in the Stalinist era) a positive way of celebrating feminine equality in Government ?'Rachel Reeves has ordered the removal of all pictures of men from the lavish state room at 11, Downing Street'.Gesture politics.And is it not true that Starmer has said he removed a portrait of Margaret Thatcher from his Downing Street study because he doesn't like "pictures of people staring down at me".Either he is paranoid or intimidated by any reference to Britain's (and Europe's) first woman Prime Minister; a politician who, whether or not you agreed with them, had views and principles which she stuck to and implemented.Unlike Captain Hindsight Starmer who has many 'principles' and if you like none of them will say "well I have plenty of others for you to try" !

John Hawkes ● 95d

Women have been so under-represented in Parliament in the past why not celebrate an increase in equality here?

Philippa Bond ● 95d