The next prime minister of Britain will be a woman. She will not be elected by the people. She will be one of two candidates left over after all the men running for Tory leader backstabbed and blustered themselves out of the running. Neither Andrea Leadsom nor Theresa May are the figureheads anyone with a scrap of interest in women’s freedom would choose, presuming we got a say, which we don’t. Nonetheless, I have spent the entire day being told that I should be pleased at the fact that the future leader of my country will be a female person. This is the feminist revolution in the same way that the Charge of the Light Brigade was a military triumph.
In times of upheaval, women are invariably called on to clear up the mess the men have made. As the greatest political crisis in recent memory continues to roll over Britain, and leader after craven wannabe leader abdicates responsibility for the fallout, I find myself recalling Mrs Lintott’s declaration in Alan Bennett’s History Boys. “History,” she says, “is a commentary on the various and continuing incapabilities of men. What is history? History is women following behind – with the bucket.”
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