When Jeremy Corbyn conducted his first Shadow Cabinet reshuffle, the Labour leader was criticised for appointing John McDonnell as Shadow Chancellor over Angela Eagle. Given that this meant the three ‘top jobs’ went to men, Corbyn faced cries of sexism.
Now in a talk on the patriarchy at the How The Light Gets In festival in Hay-on-Wye, Eagle has shed some light on why it is men are often picked for the top jobs overs members of the fairer sex. Eagle claims that men operate in a different manner to women and ‘manoeuvre like mad’:
‘Men organise in peer groups. I won’t say gangs, because that would be wrong. Maybe tribes. They manoeuvre like mad, in my experience, and they trade favours. This is a completely alien way of doing things for most women, who just get on, do the job and hope someone will recognise it.’
However perhaps Eagle should have been wise to their ways ahead of Corbyn’s reshuffle, given that she learned the hard way how they operate some years ago. Eagle found herself on the wrong side of John Prescott when she voted for Margaret Beckett to be be Deputy Leader — after Prescott had previously helped her get onto a committee:
‘He didn’t speak to me for three years. I didn’t even realise that this unwritten contract existed.’
During the talk, Eagle went on to hit out at Cameron once again for his ‘calm down dear’ comment. While the shadow Business Secretary complains that Cameron never apologised, she says that Cameron’s most sexist remark was save for Nadine Dorries:
‘The worst occasion of sexism from the Prime Minister that I can think of was aimed at Nadine Dorries – who is a bit of a thorn in the side of his bit of the Tory party. He made a joke about her being frustrated and it was very very close to the bone and nasty.
I just thought she’s asked a question as is her want but all of the front bench giggling and sniggering like school parties while she was humiliated in her own party and it’s no surprise to me that she’s the first to put in her letter that she wants a Tory leadership contest after the referendum. I don’t think you forget that kind of thing.’
Given the growing hostility towards Cameron over the EU referendum, he may come to regret such remarks in the very near future.
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