Rosie Duffield MP’s swashbuckling resignation from the Labour Party made me want to stand up and cheer.
This fearless woman, who I got to know and admire when I was in Parliament myself, didn’t mince her words when it came to explaining why she had got so disillusioned, so quickly, with the Prime Minister and the culture he had created.
‘The sleaze, nepotism and apparent avarice are off the scale,’ she wrote. ‘I am so ashamed of what you and your inner circle have done to tarnish and Âhumiliate our once-proud party.’
But it was something that she said in an interview following the release of her resignation Âletter that resonated with me most powerfully.
She argued that Sir Keir Starmer ‘had a problem with women’, adding: ‘Most of us refer to the men that surround him – the young men – as ‘the lads’. It’s very clear that the lads are in charge.
Labour MP Rosie Duffield been at odds with her party for some time over trans issues, consistent in stating her belief that only a woman can have a cervix
‘They have now got their ÂDowning Street passes. They are the same lads who were briefing against me in the papers and other prominent female MPs. I was really hoping for better, but it wasn’t to be.’
Rosie has always been one of those rare Westminster types, an MP who is guided by principles and beliefs. When I heard that she’d quit the Labour party, my first thought was: finally.
She’s been at odds with her party for some time over trans issues, consistent in stating her belief that only a woman can have a cervix.
This brought her into conflict with Starmer, who got Âhimself into all sorts of trouble as he Âdesperately tried to find a way to pander to the trans lobby without making himself sound absolutely ridiculous to the Âpopulation at large.
In 2021, Starmer suggested that Rosie’s view was ‘something that shouldn’t be said. It is not right’. He then helpfully revealed last year that ‘99.9 per cent of women haven’t got a penis’.
By November last year, Rosie’s brave stance when it comes to protecting women’s rights – she was opposed to granting trans women access to domestic Âviolence shelters, women’s Âprisons and single-sex toilets – saw her placed under investigation by her own party’s National Executive Committee.
In the past, Rosie has argued that Sir Keir Starmer ‘had a problem with women’
Her sin? To ‘like’ a tweet by Father Ted writer Graham Linehan, who had made fun of a post by the transgender comedian Eddie Izzard, which ran: ‘I’m a trans super-hero – but if I’d lived in Nazi Germany, I’d have been murdered for it.’
Although Rosie was later completely exonerated of any wrongdoing, it was only a matter of time before she could no longer ignore the truth that forced her exit from the party: Labour is inherently misogynistic.
As she said to the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg at the weekend, ‘the lads’ were in charge and women were being marginalised.
These are the same men who briefed against her and tried to cancel her after she stood up to defend the women-only spaces in the House of Commons. They are still briefing against female Labour MPs today.
Along with Sue Gray, they decide on everything, from policy, to who gets the plum seats, to who sits on the frontbench.
The Labour Party has always had a strong streak of misogyny running through it. In the bad old days, when trade unions all too often had the power to select candidates, it was not unknown for a seat to be allocated by two men and a row of whippets in a smoke-filled room.
Today, the smoke-filled rooms have been replaced with a group of intimidating ‘lads’, who have their hands firmly on the levers of government.
Or that Hamish Falconer, the son of Tony Blair’s old flatmate Charlie, not only got given a safe seat but was popped straight onto the frontbench before he’d gained any experience as an MP.
Many of the new Labour MPs who used to be lobbyists have all come from the same stable, and entered Westminster via the same route.
No wonder Rosie snapped. She won an unwinnable former Tory seat in 2017 and was one of only four Labour MPs to increase her vote share in 2019 – surely as a consequence of her tireless campaigning for women and her fearlessness in speaking the truth.
A win-win offer – go for it, Kyle
Annie Kilner, wife of footballer Kyle Walker, is said to have demanded half of his £27 million fortune in exchange for trying to make their marriage work.
I say go for it, Kyle. If she divorces you, she’ll get it anyway. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain: a shot at keeping your family together.
Waiting in the wings, of course, is his one-time Âmistress Lauryn Goodman, influencer and mother to two of his children.
I have no doubt that Annie is trying to keep the money out of the clutches of ÂLauryn for the long-term benefit of her own Âchildren. Kyle is lucky to have a committed wife like Annie offering him this last chance.
Let’s hope he takes it.
Annie Kilner, wife of footballer Kyle Walker, is said to have demanded half of his £27 million fortune in exchange for trying to make their marriage work
Why blushes in Boots led to baby No 1
Britons find buying something personal or intimate so embarrassing, according to a recent survey, that 44 per cent have been forced to leave the shop empty-handed.
The list of triggering products includes thrush cream, tampons, pregnancy tests… and condoms.
In the 1980s, when my fiance was working in Africa, we decided I would join him for a year to run a school. Unable to take the pill as I’d suffered a deep vein thrombosis, I had the unenviable task of heading to Boots to buy a year’s supply of condoms to take with me.
I duly filled my shopping basket with 24 packets of 12 condoms but my face burned red as I anticipated the look the cashier would give me or the questions she might ask at the checkout.
Would she think I was a lady of the night, or worse, a madame, stocking up on supplies for my house of ill repute?
I became so racked with nerves that when I got to the till and discovered a man was waiting to serve me, I dropped the basket on the floor and fled.Â
I disembarked the plane in Lusaka with only a packet of 12 I had begged a friend to buy for me. My eldest daughter was born ten months later.
My world’s best: Nana
A French chef was crowned the finest maker on the planet of, er, French fries at the chip-making world championship on Saturday. His secret? He used cheap supermarket potatoes and fried them in beef fat.
To many of us of Irish descent growing up in Liverpool, that’s the ‘dripping’ that was slathered on bread instead of butter. We’d have it for breakfast and, if we said we were ‘starving’, we were thrown a slice for lunch, too. If only we’d known at the time that Nana Nelly was producing fare of world-beating standards. That said, if I had told her as much, I’d have likely been told: ‘Get away out of here with all that nonsense now will ye.’ I always knew she was the world’s best.
A French chef was crowned the finest maker on the planet of, er, French fries at the chip-making world championship on Saturday. His secret? He used cheap supermarket potatoes and fried them in beef fat.
To many of us of Irish descent growing up in Liverpool, that’s the ‘dripping’ that was slathered on bread instead of butter. We’d have it for breakfast and, if we said we were ‘starving’, we were thrown a slice for lunch, too. If only we’d known at the time that Nana Nelly was producing fare of world-beating standards. That said, if I had told her as much, I’d have likely been told: ‘Get away out of here with all that nonsense now will ye.’ I always knew she was the world’s best.
I love how autumn throws everything it has at you. On Sunday, I took to the garden and was pelted with falling leaves, conkers, pine cones and windfall apples. I ended the day looking like a scarecrow but feeling like a million dollars after a hard day’s work. If only we could skip winter and move straight on to spring…Â
