The Queenager: Eleanor's Letter (February 26th 2024)

Dear Queenagers,

Hope you are having a relaxing Sunday. I spent yesterday blissing out with my three year old niece (CC above)! It was her birthday and we bought her three of the books our own girls (now 18 and 21) loved most as kids: that classic You Choose (she chose a chalet, a princess dress, a hot air balloon and wants to ‘go ‘ii-ing’ – she can’t say her ‘s’s but she’s caught the family ski-ing bug), as well as Quentin Blake’s Mr Magnolia (has only one boot) and Cockatoos (the pesky birds hide under baths and keep escaping). The joy of reading to her and watching the new connections fire in her brain as we looked at the pictures and worked out was going on was magical; as were the sloppy kisses and hugs that were my subsequent reward. And how nice to do it for an hour and then slope off and have a drink while her mum wrestled her into bed… the best kind of auntie-dom. I see this as practice for becoming a grandmother some day; the brother whose child she is, is 10 years younger than me – so I read to him, sang him to sleep and cuddled him when he was a baby. I’ve found there are reams of unexpected joy and tenderness in cuddling this little child that came out of another little child I cuddled…. their hair and backs are the same. Like time spiralling.

But I digress! First I’m looking forward to seeing some of you at the Noon Circle on Tuesday at 7pm – and lots more of you at the special online Noon Birthday Circle on March 8th at 6pm. (Noon Circles are only for Paid Subscribers… only £6 a month, meet a whole new crew and join the fun…). and had my interview with Carol Vorderman published in Grazia (here is a link) and talking of great Queenagers who have found their voice and are using it to shape politics – on the day of the big Gaza vote in parliament last Wednesday, I went to interview one of my own political heroes Jess Phillips MP. I wrote up some of what she said for the Telegraph on Saturday, but here for all of you is my special Queenager version… with lots of new quotes and different analysis.

By the way… I would particularly recommend Jess’s new podcast Electoral Dysfunction, in which she appears with Baroness Ruth Davidson (former head of the Scottish Tories and one of the rare REAL people in politics who can also speak human, she famously stood down because she didn’t think the job was good for her mental health, her relationship or her desire to be a parent). And third in the triptych of great women is Beth Rigby, Sky’s political editor and one of the smartest, nicest women in the lobby. I’ve heard the first teaser and I loved it. For those tiring of Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart’s The Rest is Politics (I used to love it but now find it a bit tiresomely samey and blokey) this three-ladies-do-politics podcast could be a winner. With half the globe going to the polls this year in elections, politics is going to feature in all of our lives: in my humble opinion these three women are a safe pair of hands to guide us through it.

So here is a special Queenager version of my interview with Jess Phillips

It is the day of the vote on the Gaza ceasefire and Westminster is buzzing. “You know it’s a big day when everywhere you look there are huddles of people plotting,” laughs Labour’s Jess Phillips as we make our way to her office in Portcullis House. In person the MP for Yardley in Birmingham is larger than life in an orange jacket and just as jolly as her turns on Have I Got News for You or the Celebrity Chase would lead you to expect. “My husband’s a lift engineer and he always takes the stairs” she wisecracks as we get in the elevator.

Jess’s cheeriness is striking given that she is one of the ten most threatened MPs in the House of Commons. She was a close friend of murdered parliamentarian Jo Cox and since 2016 has been the subject of repeated rape and death threats. In a week where the safety of MPs has been in the spotlight because of the Speaker Lindsay Hoyle’s actions over the Gaza parliamentary vote (he blamed his historic fiddling with parliamentary procedure on safety concerns) I am interested in Philips’s take.

“I was so glad to be back in Birmingham!” she says when we catch up the morning after our main interview and the chaotic vote. “I couldn’t leave the House [of Commons] fast enough, I don’t care about all that procedural argy bargy about which motion… after you left it just all went mad!””

Was she frightened going home -there were reports of angry demonstrators in Westminster? “No. It’s nonsense that there were mobs outside parliament, I got on the tube by myself and chatted to some of the very middle class protesters; we had a good natured discussion. The speaker acted the way that he did because he is obsessed about MPs security, he was in charge of that as the Deputy speaker when Jo Cox died and I know he takes it very seriously.”

As someone who has been on the sharp end, is he right about the level of threat MPs are facing? Philips emits a hurrumph.  “Some of the other MPs are beginning to realise the constant state of threat that I live under. For me this week, the threat, it’s been no worse than normal… It was bad during Brexit. But the worst for me [as an MP she champions women and girls who are the victims of abuse] are violent fathers denied access to their children who send me rape and death threats.”

She says that in comparison to 2016, “The police are much hotter on this now. If I raise something they respond within days. I have screens in my constituency office and security protection. I’ve learnt to live with that. But I am not willing to live in a shell, because if I do that, they win. So I vote, I live my life, see constituents, I try and live a normal life. I suppose I’ve got used to the threat. This time other members are just suffering what I have always suffered. Lindsay Hoyle [the speaker] is always calling me in for a chat to see if I am alright -he is more obsessed by my security than I am! The only male target who gets a similar level of abuse is David Lammy, because he is a black man.”

Philips is sad that the procedural kerfuffle over amendents to the SNP ceasefire motion, overshadowed the substance of the debate. “The important thing is that parliament has passed a motion calling for a ceasefire – saying the Israelis should not go into Rafa, that the hostages should be released, that there should be Aid. The House of Commons should be listened to by the Executive.”

For Phillips, 42, this is personal. Last November, she voted with the SNP for  an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, forfeiting her seat on the Labour front bench for her pains. Given this view is now shared by everyone from President Biden to Prince William, President Macron and even Sir Keir himself, was she ahead of the curve?

“It was an inevitability that Israel’s military action would not desist. Nothing ever ends through warfare. It was inevitable we’d end up calling for a political solution.”

Was it a hard call? “Yes it was a massive wrench. I loved that job.. [Shadow Minister for Domestic Violence a role she held from 2020to 2023] It is what I entered politics to do. I can see some of my colleagues wrestling with their consciences over Gaza now – and that is a bit triggering…”I look up and she is wiping away a tear.  “No, hang on, I’ve worked in rape crisis so I know that being triggered is a REAL thing… but truth is, I’ve got that feeling in my stomach of how difficult that was for me last time, that learnt experience of the wrench, like when people talk about childbirth and you cross your legs… it’s the hardest thing as a parliamentarian, wrestling with our own morality.”

As we chat I look around her office, we are sitting at a round table in her inner sanctum. A huge pinboard is crammed with rosettes and thank you cards, many from abused women she has helped. There’s a lunch box from Ben Shepherd’s Tipping Point;  a handwritten note from outgoing Vogue Editor, Edward Enningful. She says she’d love to go on Saturday Morning Kitchen “because everyone gets pissed”. The office is a melange or high seriousness and fun, rather like Jess herself. Was she surprised Prince William also called for a humanitarian ceasefire?  She nods. “I do think ‘Well done Willy’– it’s an unusual foray for a royal. Maybe that’s become the precedent for the Prince of Wales, for him to do the talking. Charles did it back in the day but now he’s become a bit shtummy… But I’m not surprised Prince William spoke out after talking to the Red Cross. There’s nothing like talking to Aid workers to get a feel for what’s happening.”

We talk about the polarity of this debate, the lack of reliable sources -an Israeli government spokesperson was on Newsnight last week claiming that 10,000 of the 30,000 killed by the Israelis in Gaza were Hamas soldiers. “Time was that you could trust what the BBC was saying…” says Jess. Does she not trust the BBC? “I do… but truth is the first casualty of war; these days there is purposeful misinformation, the intentional creation of question marks about facts. As an MP you have to make sure you are sharing and hearing the right information.” How does she do that? “Well Parliament can look like lunatics to the outsider but actually it has some stellar institutions finding trustworthy information.” She says she has regular briefings “from those with security clearance to give you a sense of it” and also from Alicia Kearns MP (head of the Foreign Affairs Committee) and Sarah Champion (Head of the International Development Committee who spent this week at the Rafa crossing).

Was she angry with Sir Keir for sacking her over Gaza? “He had no choice. He might be the PM.. he has to make different calculations from me. He has a difficult job.” Interesting. Jess Phillips has always been outspoken about wanting to be PM herself, ever since she was a grammar school girl -she insisted on going because she was good at tests – growing up in Birmingham. Her father was a teacher and her mother worked for the NHS ending up as Chair of South Birmingham Mental Health Trust. Her grandfather was good friends with lefty firebrand Tony Benn (“one of my political heroes – but I don’t really have many of them as I am a normal”.) She is the mother of two sons, aged 15 and 20 (she had her first when she was only 22 and wants to encourage more women to have their kids earlier).  We had a great chat about how much she loves having an empty nest, how she finally has time to hang out with her husband Tom. “We had our first child within months of meeting so this is the first time we’ve been together as adults, I love it.” We discuss how under-rated this post kids time is, the joy of hanging out with a much-loved partner again. Her Queenager years have come early because she became a mother so young. She reels of statistics about how much easier it is to get pregnant in your twenties (90 out of every 100 women apparently)compared to less than 50 in your 30s).

Would she still like to be Prime Minister?

“I’d still give it a crack, sure!” she says, firmly. “I used to want to be the Home Secretary. But I’ve learnt I don’t have that special skill of plotting organising for your own progression that you need to get on. Women are less interested in that than men. My only ambition in politics is to halve the levels of violence experienced by women and girls in a decade despite two women dying every week there is still no strategy or target around femicide? We live in a patriarchy still. It is 2024 but all our institutions are based on a 1950s, or 1850s or even 1750s ideal which doesn’t work for women.” Prior to becoming an MP she worked for Women’s Aid and ran rape crisis refuges. I believe her when she says it is her life’s purpose. Phillips is a rare bird in today’s politics – a confident, clever working class woman.

So where is she on trans issues, how has her work on protecting women been affected by this debate? “My actual life, the actual work hasn’t been affected at all. The political space has undoubtedly been affected, not all negatively.” Can she still speak about women? “Of course! I feel totally comfortable speaking out about women – sometimes when I talk about women that means different things. I am capable of holding two ideas in my head at once… I believe in single sex spaces for biological women, prisons, refuges etc – 100 per cent. I’ve got the t-shirt on that. But also if someone asks me to refer to them as a woman, I personally will do that. I’ll call you whatever you ask me to. I am happy to refer to transwomen as women. But also the idea that I am meant to parrot ‘transwomen are women’ as a slogan is fucking meaningless.” Classic Philips. Having her cake and eating it.

But in terms of the actual work? “When I worked in women’s refuges, long before this row, we always asked questions on the referral forms about people’s sex at birth, whether people had transitioned basically. The language we used would probably get you sent to the gallows now…” She smiles and goes into a long, nuanced explanation about how “there are all sorts of reasons why women who are referred might not be allowed in a refuge, not just trans. For instance if a woman had a 14 year old son with her she wouldn’t be allowed in the main women’s refuge centre, she would be cared for in dispersed houses within the community with supervision so she could stay with her son.  Or there were women with child protection issues, who weren’t allowed around other women’s children, who would be put somewhere separately. Or those with substance abuse issues. Women are not all angels, some are a pain in the arse. This is Parliament’s responsibility, it’s up to the legislature to make it clear what should happen any threat of litigation is huge for small organisations. But I would never suggest we have generic women’s services, they need to be specialised:  In this space there are lots of different needs, for instance in Yardley we have a refuge for south Asian women and another for black women, the cultural experiences differ – although they have in common patriarchy, that men have been arseholes to them!” She stresses that it is disabled women, older women and those with complex needs who have “the hardest time accessing the right kind of safe spaces…We need to have women’s biological spaces, but also when I was on Birmingham Council I commissioned domestic refugees for LGBTQ+ folk, particularly men beaten up by their partners. They used to ring Women’s Aid for help– but it’s a bit like ringing cat’s protection, and saying please help me: I’m a dog! There should be dog protection too. It should not be beyond the wit of man to protect women’s biological sex spaces and provide different spaces for trans people.”

It is this quick turn of phrase, an ability to make complex issues understandable and even funny which is Philips’ skill. She agrees. “I have a gift for making politics approachable to people. It’s an actual gift… particularly at this time when I hear constantly on the doorsteps people saying, ’what’s the point? Nothing can change!’”

A recent Edelman index survey put trust in the UK political system at less than 30%, bottom of all 26 polled countries. How does she change that perception on the doorsteps? “I talk about The Weekend.” For a second I have no idea what she is on about and wonder if I have missed some hot new TV show called The Weekend. But no she is talking about SAturday and Sunday. “The weekend doesn’t exist in China. The weekend was created by the union movement organising in canteens in Manchester about shift patterns to get workers proper time off. That’s where all legislation comes from, whether it’s abortion rights, or child benefit. Everything in our lives is decided here in Westminster in this building because someone bothered to ask us to do something about it. I hate this idea that things don’t get better, they do!. Take my mother in law. When she was 11 she went to work in a hotel and served breakfast before school, then post school she’d wander the street with a bag of potatoes or boiled sweets selling them door to door. Then do another shift in the hotel. And she still had holes in her shoes. None of that would ever happen to her grandchildren now because there are laws against it. That’s progression.”  I love this idea that we can all make progress – it chimes with me because that is what I am trying to do with Noon and this newsletter. Change the story that society tells about the lives of women 50 plus, advocate for a new more positive narrative that is more fit for purpose. Phillips is all for that. We talk about how this current generation of women 45 plus is the tip of the spear of the women who pioneered work-place change. “I wouldn’t have had the life I’ve had, been able to have my kids and take maternity leave, and get free childcare and buy my home without the reforms that Harriet Harman and the rest of the 100 women elected to Westminster in 1997 brought in. Harriet is my political hero.” Jess is proof that progress is possible.

Above her desk a poster declaims: Well Behaved Women Rarely Make History. It could be her maxim: in a Westminster world of careful career politicians Phillips stands out. She is warm, shoots from the hip and isn’t afraid to take on thorny subjects. I’d say she has what the kids call ‘riz’ – charisma. This is on show in her new podcast. “It is important to have women who understand politics talking about all politics not just women’s issues,” she says. “Half the globe are going to the polls this year, there is a huge nervous existential anxiety around global politics. Here too: Rishi should call the election to deal with some of that – the uncertainty is ‘making me bad’ as me Nan would say.” Philips is proud to come from working class stock: “I didn’t want to just be an MP, I wanted to be MP for Yardley where I have to call half of my constituents ‘auntie’ cos I’ve known them all m’ life”.

Philips loves the cut and thrust of politics, pitting her ideas against others. “Take Ruth [Davidson}. We don’t always agree on the podcast or anywhere else. Take Inheritance tax, I don’t see the problem with that. Say I sold my house for a million pounds – which I won’t  – my two kids would inherit it and they would have to pay the exchequer £20k each. That’s not bad considering they would just have got 500k for doing nothing. In my constituency in Yardley Birmingham there are only 11 houses which would enter the inheritance tax threshold, but there are 5000 kids losing child tax credits.” She is worried that her children and their entire generation look at their parents and just see a mortage deposit “Like in the cartoons when they look at another animal and just see a steaming ham, lunch!”.

Later this year, Britain will vote. Recent by-election results and the opinion polls point to a Labour victory. Should we be worried about what that will mean? “No. It’s going to be slowly, slowly catchee monkey. Don’t panic. Nothing can change too fast because of the state of the economy. It’s going to be about the details, a slow renewal.”

As we all gear up for a huge year in terms of global politics I am glad that Jess’s voice is one of those shaping the debate. We’ve never needed her brand or warm humanity more.

Hope you enjoyed the newsletter today! See you soon – and please subscribe if you can!

Lots of love

Eleanor

By Eleanor Mills