Equality

It’s safe to say this week hasn’t been the best for Labour. As well as a never-ending reshuffle saga, Corbyn was accused of ‘low-level non-violent misogyny’ over the lack of women in the top roles in his Shadow Cabinet by Labour MP Jess Phillips. So with the cabinet officially reshuffled, brains at Labour HQ decided it was time for a very special announcement: they had increased the number of women in their Shadow Cabinet by one! A press release entitled ‘NEWS FROM LABOUR: Following the reshuffle women now occupy 17 out of the 31 shadow cabinet positions’ was sent around which included the number of women in both the shadow cabinet

Like all right-thinking lefty men who came of age in the women’s liberation movement of the 1970s, I always thought of myself as a feminist. But now, thanks to Meryl Streep, I’ve been liberated from the label. Last week I heard her on the radio promoting her new film Suffragette. Asked why the story of the suffragettes hadn’t been made into a film before now, she said that in Hollywood the men with the power to get films made didn’t see this subject as anything to do with them. ‘It wasn’t their fight,’ said Streep. But now things were changing. ‘Increasingly we think that women’s issues and women rights are

Earlier this year Sandi Toksvig stepped down from her role on Radio 4’s The News Quiz to launch a career in politics as part of the newly-formed Women’s Equality Party. Speaking about her decision to leave the BBC for politics, the presenter-turned-politician said that she had had enough of making jokes about politicians and instead wanted to participate in politics, with the aim to field party candidates in the 2020 election: ‘I have made jokes over and over again about politics and, do you know, this election I’ve had enough, and I have decided that instead of making jokes about it, I need to participate. So I am involved in the

Can a Conservative be ‘progressive’? In my Telegraph column last week, I argued that David Cameron is halfway to being one of the most progressive Prime Ministers in recent British history – and published a few graphs to make my case. This went down pretty badly with some CoffeeHousers, who said that I was applauding Cameron for being left-wing – if they wanted a bleating leftie, they’d have voted Labour. I take the point: the word ‘progressive’ is synonymous with ‘left-wing’ in America, as is the word ‘liberal’. But that’s the Americans’ problem. Granting the left ownership of the words ‘liberal’ and ‘progressive’ disguises two basic points. First, conservatism is

This speech was authentic Cameron. It was the most modernising speech that he has given since becoming Prime Minister and an attempt to reposition the Tories as the party of ‘true equality’. It was a return to the approach that characterised his leadership before the financial crash of 2008. Traditional Tory thinking has always been that if you work hard you get on, that you can pull yourselves up by your bootstraps. But this speech argued that for some people in society this simply isn’t true, that they find their opportunities blocked at every turn. Cameron cited the example of a black girl who had to change her name to

Nicky Morgan delivered a speech to Tory conference that was lacking in new policies or announcements, but strong on equality. Wearing her other hat as Minister for Women and Equalities, Morgan went on the attack and lambasted Labour for its policies — in particular the lack of women in senior posts: ‘Equality for us isn’t about quotas, pink vans or separate train carriages. Instead, it’s about that core Conservative philosophy which says the fact that you happen to be a woman, to be gay, to be from an ethnic minority, should never be a barrier to you achieving your all. ‘And unlike the Labour Party we practise what we preach. Because women are

Sandi Toksvig disclosed last month that she has given up her role on Radio 4’s The News Quiz in order to focus on launching the Women’s Equality Party. Appearing at the Hay Festival, Toksvig spoke about her reasons for wanting to start the new political party, which aims to ensure women are treated equally to men. In doing so, she also launched a series of jokes about today’s politicians, claiming that the current political system is ‘beyond broken’. She said that Labour’s pink bus had ‘[Emmeline] Pankhurst spinning in her grave’ while today’s government makes the coalition seem like the ‘good old days’ to many. While Toksvig is clearly no longer

Now and again, America puts its inequality on display to the world. We saw it after Hurricane Katrina and we have seen it again in the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri. A white police offer shoots dead a black man, after having stopped him for jaywalking. Britain’s police don’t have guns, so these scenes are unthinkable to us. But American-style inequality? We have plenty of that too, we’re just better at hiding it – as I say in my Telegraph column today. I came across a striking fact while researching this piece: if Britain were to somehow leave the EU and join the US we’d be the 2nd-poorest state in the

Harriet Harman’s scathing attack on the top men in politics for their failure to advance gender equality has certainly annoyed Damian McBride, who argues that Labour’s deputy leader is talking ‘utter bilge’. It’s utter bilge from Harriet, done to make her attack on Dave look non-partisan. And shameful timing given the work GB is doing in Nigeria. — Damian McBride (@DPMcBride) July 8, 2014 The Standard reports that Harman will say at an event tonight: ‘And imagine the consternation in my office when we discovered that my involvement in the London G20 summit was inclusion at the No10 dinner for the G20 leaders’ wives.’ Presumably she is talking about this

Over the next two days, one of the most important events in the British sporting calendar takes place. No, not the final day of the Premier League season. Badminton Horse Trials, obviously. This is one of only two annual horse trials in the UK (and six in the world) at which eventers compete at the top level. Oh, and one of the favourites to win is British. So of course the BBC is broadcasting it on one of their main channels, right? Wrong. During the London Olympics, equestrianism was one of the most popular sports on the BBC red button channel, with the freestyle musical dressage (aka horse dancing) in