Dame Kelly Holmes, Cabinet reshuffle, Debenhams picketers

Woman's Hour

BBC

Society & Culture

4.1 • 3K Ratings

🗓️ 14 November 2023

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The four top jobs in Rishi Sunak’s new cabinet have all been filled with men. It’s the first time this has happened since 2009. To unpack what this means, Emma Barnett is joined by Baroness Kate Fall, former deputy chief of staff to the newly appointed Lord Cameron, and Executive Editor of Politico Anne McElvoy.

Double Olympic champion Dame Kelly Holmes spoke publicly about her sexuality for the first time in June last year. Her new memoir, Unique, details how serving in the military in the late 1980s - when it was illegal to be gay in the military – was a major factor in contributing to her decades-long silence. Dame Kelly joins Woman’s Hour to speak about her experience and what it meant to hear the Government’s apology to LGBT veterans.

In April 2020, Debenhams in Ireland closed all 11 of its stores, informing its staff they had been let go in the process. What ensued were pickets and protests across Ireland that lasted for 406 days, 24 hours a day and through all weathers. As a new film is released on the subject in the UK, Emma is joined by Carol Ann Bridgeman who worked for Debenhams for 15 years and Jane Crowe who worked there for 23 years.

Karuna Nundy is an advocate at the Supreme Court in India and has been leading legal campaigns to criminalise marital rape and to legalise same-sex marriage. She was named one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People of 2022 and will be giving a speech on her career tonight at the Institute for Development Studies. She joins Emma to discuss her role in these high-profile cases.

Presenter: Emma Barnett Producer: Lottie Garton

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're about to listen to a BBC podcast and trust me you'll get there in a moment but if you're a comedy fan
0:05.2	I'd really like to tell you a bit about what we do. I'm Julie Mackenzie and I commission comedy
0:10.2	podcast at the BBC. It's a bit of a dream job really.
0:13.0	Comedy is a fantastic joyous thing to do because really you're making people laugh,
0:18.0	making people's days a bit better, helping them process, all manner of things.
0:22.0	But you know I also know that comedy is really
0:24.4	subjective and everyone has different tastes so we've got a huge range of comedy on offer
0:29.6	from satire to silly shocking to soothing profound to just general pratting about. So if you
0:36.2	fancy a laugh, find your next comedy at BBC Sounds.
0:41.0	BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts.
0:45.0	Hello, I'm Emma Barnett and welcome to Womonsa from BBC Radio 4.
0:50.0	Yesterday, as we came on air, David Cameron was confirmed as the UK's new Foreign Secretary,
0:55.6	the start of one of the more surprising Cabinet reshuffles in recent times,
0:59.2	everything was changing as I was talking to you,
1:01.0	and those changes kept coming throughout the day but one fact did
1:04.3	remain that I mentioned yesterday as it was happening I didn't know how it was going to
1:07.8	end up which is for the first time in 14 years since 2009 the Prime Minister does not have a single woman around his top table,
1:16.0	the big four offices of state.
1:18.6	When I mentioned this as a possibility yesterday while the reshuffle was live, Some of you expressed concern, distaste, some of you
1:25.8	bemoaned the removal of Sulea Braverman as Home Secretary, the former most senior woman in government.
1:31.6	Some of you were also positively rejoicing at her removal, but others
1:35.6	amongst you may the point that the sex of the ministers did not matter a jot. What matters is
	...

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