So now, after the disastrous and divisive referendum campaign, we have a new Prime Minister.
And for only the second time in our history it will be woman. I offer Theresa May my congratulations. Having a woman at the top of our country sends a strong message that no girl or woman can be told “you can’t do that because you’re a woman”. The overwhelming majority of Conservative MPs are men and she beat them all to the top spot.
But what will she, as a woman who has now reached the top, do to change things for other women?
Here are the 8 U-turns we need from this new woman Prime Minister.
- She should start with a U-turn which ensures that our public services, like the NHS and care for the elderly, have the resources they need.
- She must ensure that every family has accessible, affordable childcare to care for children while the parents are working.
Too many women have to limit what they do in their work because they can’t afford childcare. She should re-open the children’s centres that her government has closed. And set about opening new ones.
- She must give parents strong rights at work. Most of the people at work are someone’s parent. Parents need to be able to spend time with their children as well as earn money to spend on them. There should be longer maternity and paternity leave and higher maternity and paternity pay.
- She must give grandparents new rights at work. Grandparents need new rights to take paid time off work to help with their grandchildren
- She must give the police the resources and the leadership they need to step up tackling domestic violence. A woman prime minister should make it a priority to prevent the deaths of two women every week at the hands of domestic violence.
- She must ensure that what we do internationally, through our Foreign Office and through our development aid, helps empower women around the world who are suffering poverty and oppression. 50% of our ambassadors must be women.
- She must implement Labour’s Equality Act, now and in full. That will strengthen the law on equal pay and against discrimination for everyone, not just women but people of all backgrounds.
- She should appoint a cabinet and ministerial team which is half women.
When Margaret Thatcher was a Prime Minister we had a slogan “The First Lady puts women last”
Being the Prime Minister is not just about who you are. It’s about what you do – for this country and all the people in it. A woman prime minister should deliver for women in the country she will now lead.
I love the the use of imperative ‘must’. I have one: Theresa May must ignore a morally bankrupt party that cannot govern itself and that in spite of its pretentious support of feminism has has yet to put a women PM into Number 10 while the Tories now have done it twice. Oh the irony!
I just think it is so hypocritical for a Labour MP who failed along with her Labour Colleagues to govern the Nation and country Properly
despite given 3 chances by the electorate,
to now turn around and start banging on about what the New PM should do for Women.
everyone is equal in my eyes…we all have the same basics needs.
we are born the same and we die the same.
the only problem is the government is hypocritical.
it talks about equality because its currently fashionable
but it does little to change the unfair system that treats people according to their gender.
the country doesn’t want Lip Service Harriot
it wants and needs positive action.