Labour Hypocrisy
Dan Hodges gets to the heart of the 'vanity project' which explains the nonsense of Labour's stupid pink van.
While those who holed the positions of power inside the Labour Party (virtually all men) are out doing their thing, Harriet Harman and the 'wimmin' are bought off with a shiny new van and the prospect of a chauffeur-driven tour of marginal constituencies with one of the drivers apparently supplied by Unite.
I wonder if they'll come to North Lanarkshire and book a meeting with some of the thousands of women who are fighting the local Labour-run council for equal pay?
If so, I'll be happy to help with the arrangements.
Labour needs to park its stupid pink van
The idea the Labour Party is blazing a trail for women is one of the biggest jokes in British politics
By Dan Hodges - The Telegraph
On this day in 1975 Margaret Thatcher became the first female leader of the Conservative Party.
Yesterday the Labour Party unveiled its response. According to the Guardian “a bright pink minibus of female Labour MPs will tour constituencies to talk to female voters around the kitchen table”.
A pink bus. To talk to women. Around the kitchen table. In the year 2015. Courtesy of the Labour Party. Harriet Harman, who proudly unveiled the strategy, was challenged on the colour of the bus. “It is the correct colour. This is a One Nation Labour colour”, she said. Lucy Powell was asked about the implication that women lived chained to their kitchen tables. She said Labour wanted to reach out to women and “have a conversation about the kitchen table, and around the kitchen table”, not an “economy that just reaches the boardroom table”. As she spoke, her male colleagues Ed Balls and Chuka Umunna were at the British Chambers of Commerce, setting out Labour’s vision for business and plans for the macroeconomy.
Gloria de Piero chipped in that she thought the bus was in fact “cerise”. Harriet Harman said it looked “magenta”.
I appreciate all this reads like a parody. A rejected scene from The Thick Of It. Actually, a rejected sketch from Mind Your Language. And this morning, lots of people will be shaking their heads and saying “How could this happen? How could Labour be this stupid?”
I’ll tell you precisely how it happened. At some point over the last few months, Harriet Harman will have sat down with Ed Miliband. “Ed”, she will have said. “I’m not happy about the campaign. I’m being sidelined. The women on our team are being sidelined. We need a bigger role.”
Ed will have lent back in this chair, looked thoughtful for a second, and said: “Harriet you're right. I’m sorry, you know what it’s like, I’ve had a lot of things on my plate. But you’re absolutely right. You send me some suggestions about how we integrate you more fully into the campaign, and I’ll act on them.”
So Harriet will have gone off, and brainstormed with her staff, and sent through a weighty paper with lots of suggestions about how Labour’s women should have a bigger role in the forthcoming campaign. And a few days later, a small group of tired and bored looking men with coffee breath will have traipsed into a tiny House of Commons meeting room.
“Can we make this quick”, one of them will have said, “I’ve got important stuff to attend to”. “Now, come on”, one of his colleagues will have responded. "You know we have to do this. Harriet’s on the warpath, and we’ve got to come up with something to keep her happy”. Reluctantly, they will have started flicking through the paper. “Major roll in formulating economic strategy. Obviously that’s out. Foreign policy – nope. Trident renewal – nope. Strategy for coalition negotiations – nope. Transition strategy – nope”.
“Look”, someone finally pipes up. “She wants a couple of places on the main campaign steering group”. “OK, how many men have we got on there?”. “About a dozen”. “Fine, let’s give her that. A couple of women can’t do any harm”.
“Hey”, someone else declares excitedly. “She wants a women’s campaign. With a van”. “A van?”. “Yeah, a van”. The men shrug. “Let’s give her a van then”. “Great. Are we done here”. “Yeah, we’re done. That should be enough”.
Those struggling to understand why Labour’s women have unveiled a campaign strategy so incomprehensibly crass and patronising as the Pink Kitchen Tour are missing the point. Labour’s women haven’t. It’s Labour’s men who are making these decisions, in the same way they’ve always made these decisions.
The leader of the Labour Party is a man. The general secretary of the Labour Party is a man. The majority of senior shadow cabinet positions are held by men. The people who fund the Labour Party are all men. The leader of the opposition’s office is staffed almost exclusively by men. The Labour Party manifesto is being written by men. The idea the Labour Party is blazing a trail for women is one of the biggest jokes in British politics.
“But look a Harriet Harman”, the women in Labour’s ranks cry. “Look at everything she’s doing”. Labour’s men worked out how to play Harriet Harman years ago. They give her baubles. Harriet wants her own women's day at the start of Labour Party conference? Fine she’s got it. Harriet wants to be deputy leader? By all means. Harriet wants to sit at PMQs in her “This Is What A Feminist Looks Like” T-shirt? Let her. Harriet wants a pink van? Of course she can have a pink van. So long as the men can be left alone to manage the grown up stuff.
It’s now 22 years since Labour introduced all-women shortlists. In the last Labour leadership election not a single female member of the shadow cabinet even bothered to stand. Last week Labour’s NEC was informed about the party’s ongoing candidate selection. They were told “a few” more women than men had been selected for Labour held target seats, but that men made up three quarters of the remainder. When Jim Murphy replaced Johann Lamont as leader of the Scottish Labour Party, it left Labour as the only major party without a women in a single one of the three national leadership positions.
But it does have a pink bus. Labour continues to talk the talk on women in politics, but still cannot walk the walk. Partly that’s because it hasn’t really had to, given the appalling lack of representation in the other parties. But mainly its because, as I say, the men in Labour’s ranks have become adept a playing – and beating – Labour’s women at their own game.
And they’ll keep on beating them at it. They’ll keep handing out the sinecures and the baubles, and making all the necessary noises and meaningless concessions. And they’ll continue to maintain the male status quo beneath a cerise veneer of change.
But nothing will change. Nothing will change until Labour’s women do the one thing that to date they have not been prepared to do. Stand for and win the leadership of their party.
Labour’s women can take as many pink buses, and drive them round to as many kitchen tables, delivering as many homilies about child care and workplace pay as they like. But until they take that final step, then the rest is just patronising fluff.
It’s 40 years since Margaret Thatcher walked out of her kitchen and set off for Downing Street. Labour’s women need to park their stupid pink van, get out, and follow in her footsteps.
The idea the Labour Party is blazing a trail for women is one of the biggest jokes in British politics
By Dan Hodges - The Telegraph
On this day in 1975 Margaret Thatcher became the first female leader of the Conservative Party.
Yesterday the Labour Party unveiled its response. According to the Guardian “a bright pink minibus of female Labour MPs will tour constituencies to talk to female voters around the kitchen table”.
A pink bus. To talk to women. Around the kitchen table. In the year 2015. Courtesy of the Labour Party. Harriet Harman, who proudly unveiled the strategy, was challenged on the colour of the bus. “It is the correct colour. This is a One Nation Labour colour”, she said. Lucy Powell was asked about the implication that women lived chained to their kitchen tables. She said Labour wanted to reach out to women and “have a conversation about the kitchen table, and around the kitchen table”, not an “economy that just reaches the boardroom table”. As she spoke, her male colleagues Ed Balls and Chuka Umunna were at the British Chambers of Commerce, setting out Labour’s vision for business and plans for the macroeconomy.
Gloria de Piero chipped in that she thought the bus was in fact “cerise”. Harriet Harman said it looked “magenta”.
I appreciate all this reads like a parody. A rejected scene from The Thick Of It. Actually, a rejected sketch from Mind Your Language. And this morning, lots of people will be shaking their heads and saying “How could this happen? How could Labour be this stupid?”
I’ll tell you precisely how it happened. At some point over the last few months, Harriet Harman will have sat down with Ed Miliband. “Ed”, she will have said. “I’m not happy about the campaign. I’m being sidelined. The women on our team are being sidelined. We need a bigger role.”
Ed will have lent back in this chair, looked thoughtful for a second, and said: “Harriet you're right. I’m sorry, you know what it’s like, I’ve had a lot of things on my plate. But you’re absolutely right. You send me some suggestions about how we integrate you more fully into the campaign, and I’ll act on them.”
So Harriet will have gone off, and brainstormed with her staff, and sent through a weighty paper with lots of suggestions about how Labour’s women should have a bigger role in the forthcoming campaign. And a few days later, a small group of tired and bored looking men with coffee breath will have traipsed into a tiny House of Commons meeting room.
“Can we make this quick”, one of them will have said, “I’ve got important stuff to attend to”. “Now, come on”, one of his colleagues will have responded. "You know we have to do this. Harriet’s on the warpath, and we’ve got to come up with something to keep her happy”. Reluctantly, they will have started flicking through the paper. “Major roll in formulating economic strategy. Obviously that’s out. Foreign policy – nope. Trident renewal – nope. Strategy for coalition negotiations – nope. Transition strategy – nope”.
“Look”, someone finally pipes up. “She wants a couple of places on the main campaign steering group”. “OK, how many men have we got on there?”. “About a dozen”. “Fine, let’s give her that. A couple of women can’t do any harm”.
“Hey”, someone else declares excitedly. “She wants a women’s campaign. With a van”. “A van?”. “Yeah, a van”. The men shrug. “Let’s give her a van then”. “Great. Are we done here”. “Yeah, we’re done. That should be enough”.
Those struggling to understand why Labour’s women have unveiled a campaign strategy so incomprehensibly crass and patronising as the Pink Kitchen Tour are missing the point. Labour’s women haven’t. It’s Labour’s men who are making these decisions, in the same way they’ve always made these decisions.
The leader of the Labour Party is a man. The general secretary of the Labour Party is a man. The majority of senior shadow cabinet positions are held by men. The people who fund the Labour Party are all men. The leader of the opposition’s office is staffed almost exclusively by men. The Labour Party manifesto is being written by men. The idea the Labour Party is blazing a trail for women is one of the biggest jokes in British politics.
“But look a Harriet Harman”, the women in Labour’s ranks cry. “Look at everything she’s doing”. Labour’s men worked out how to play Harriet Harman years ago. They give her baubles. Harriet wants her own women's day at the start of Labour Party conference? Fine she’s got it. Harriet wants to be deputy leader? By all means. Harriet wants to sit at PMQs in her “This Is What A Feminist Looks Like” T-shirt? Let her. Harriet wants a pink van? Of course she can have a pink van. So long as the men can be left alone to manage the grown up stuff.
It’s now 22 years since Labour introduced all-women shortlists. In the last Labour leadership election not a single female member of the shadow cabinet even bothered to stand. Last week Labour’s NEC was informed about the party’s ongoing candidate selection. They were told “a few” more women than men had been selected for Labour held target seats, but that men made up three quarters of the remainder. When Jim Murphy replaced Johann Lamont as leader of the Scottish Labour Party, it left Labour as the only major party without a women in a single one of the three national leadership positions.
But it does have a pink bus. Labour continues to talk the talk on women in politics, but still cannot walk the walk. Partly that’s because it hasn’t really had to, given the appalling lack of representation in the other parties. But mainly its because, as I say, the men in Labour’s ranks have become adept a playing – and beating – Labour’s women at their own game.
And they’ll keep on beating them at it. They’ll keep handing out the sinecures and the baubles, and making all the necessary noises and meaningless concessions. And they’ll continue to maintain the male status quo beneath a cerise veneer of change.
But nothing will change. Nothing will change until Labour’s women do the one thing that to date they have not been prepared to do. Stand for and win the leadership of their party.
Labour’s women can take as many pink buses, and drive them round to as many kitchen tables, delivering as many homilies about child care and workplace pay as they like. But until they take that final step, then the rest is just patronising fluff.
It’s 40 years since Margaret Thatcher walked out of her kitchen and set off for Downing Street. Labour’s women need to park their stupid pink van, get out, and follow in her footsteps.
