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Woman's Hour

Christmas Parties, Afghan Families in Hotels, Hypothalamic Amenorrhea

Woman's Hour

BBC

Society & Culture

4.13K Ratings

🗓️ 8 December 2021

⏱️ 58 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Allegra Stratton has found herself at the centre of a political storm. ITV footage shows her rehearsing a TV news conference and dealing with tricky questions about Christmas parties during covid lockdowns. Staff are laughing and joking. We speak to political journalist Pippa Crerar, who broke the original story of the Downing Street party as well as other gatherings. We also get reaction from Jo Lawrence who has a catering company, and whose Mum sadly died of covid last year.

We talk about women in chess with Woman Grandmaster and nine time British woman's chess champion Jovanka Houska and Aga Milewska, Director of Women’s Chess at the English Chess Federation.

An Afghan mum, who's in a hotel with her family, is having to move to her third hotel since she got here a few months ago. We find out what life is like for her and her children, and speak to Judith Dennis from The Refugee Council about why this constant moving is happening.

We hear from Tanya Borg whose daughters are still in Libya, after their father took them there in 2015. She said: "It breaks my heart. Why is nobody doing anything? I'm going to try and get them back until I die." Tanya was granted full custody by British and Libyan courts, but the girls are still missing and thought to be with their grandmother.

The writer, musician and mum of three, Izzy Judd, tells us about her past disordered eating and obsession with 'clean' diets which she believes were problems when she was trying to get pregnant. Dr Fatima Husain, a Consultant Obstetrician and Gynaecologist, explains more about the condition of Hypothalamic Amenorrhea.

Transcript

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0:00.0

BBC sounds, music, radio, podcasts.

0:05.3

Hello, I'm Emma Barnett, and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4.

0:10.0

Hello, good morning. Welcome to the programme.

0:12.1

The row over the Downing Street Christmas party at the height of lockdown last year

0:16.4

has intensified with the leak of a video to ITV showing the Prime Minister's top media

0:20.9

aides joking about it in a mock press briefing.

0:24.6

Very unusually, no ministers have been made available to programmes this morning,

0:28.4

but Boris Johnson himself will have to answer at noon at Prime Minister's questions

0:33.3

over the dispatch box. He'll obviously have to answer to Sir Keir Starmer,

0:37.0

a leader of her Majesty's Opposition, and to the House.

0:40.2

Shortly, you'll hear from the woman who broke the original story about this party,

0:44.1

the Daily Mirror's political editor, Pippa Criara.

0:47.1

She happens to be the journalist who broke the Barnard Castle story about Dominic Cummings.

0:52.0

But what I want to ask you today is based on the words of the Conservative Backbench MP,

0:56.5

Mr Charles Walker, who told my colleagues this morning on the today programme

1:00.1

that this leaked video, which you'll hear a part of shortly,

1:03.1

makes it very, very difficult now for the government to have anything but voluntary restrictions

1:07.9

on people's mixing and mingling.

1:10.1

He said, quote,

1:11.1

people if required in law not to meet friends and relatives will say,

1:15.0

look, it didn't happen last year at number 10 Downing Street.

1:18.6

Do you agree with him?

...

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