It is the question on everyone’s lips: is Boris Johnson a feminist? The Prime Minister’s press secretary claimed a fortnight ago that he is; to the Guardian and the usual suspects he is a ‘priapic sexist’ guilty of the worst sorts of On the Buses smut – including in the Spectator’s own august pages.
But now given Johnson’s support in November for a gender balanced parliament and his noticeably restrained comments last week about the policing of the Clapham Common vigil, Mr S wonders if absolute power has changed Boris, well, absolutely?
Who better to answer this question than Caroline Nokes, elected unopposed last year as chair of the women and equalities committee in the Commons. Speaking to Bright Blue’s podcast, released today but recorded at the end of last month, Nokes was asked whether she thought Johnson was a feminist:
No I don’t think he is. And I was very disappointed that after a very compelling video he did for the 50:50 parliament, the next time he appointed people to the Lords, they were very heavily skewed towards men and I think since he became Prime Minister the figures are something like 20 men and 6 women into the Lords. I may be wrong on the numbers but that gives you a sense of proportion. So when the Prime Minister does videos proclaiming his support for a 50:50 parliament he needs to remember that the House of Lords is part of Parliament as well and he could very easily have started to address the gender imbalance there.
Mr S suspects Nokes won’t be invited to correct such an imbalance in the upper house any time soon.
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