223. Anne Jenkin

0:02This is a global production. Politics is the most risky of businesses and I don't believe they think it through in the same way. So I know because of many years of experience, 20 years now of doing Women to Win, that the women have the form for the candidates list sitting on their desk for six months and a man will have it on his desk for two weeks if that. one doesn't know whether to want Andy Burnham to call a general election quite soon or whether to leave it for another three years well I would rather he waited until we had a few more women on the candidates list Rachel so if there's anybody listening out there who thinks they might have what it takes and who shouts at the telly do you think that he modelled at least one of the weddings on your wedding and four weddings I think he modelled it on it would be an exaggeration.

0:57But I did make a speech, which lots of girls didn't do in those days, women didn't do, and an old boy at the back did keel over. And if you remember in the film... Simon Callow dies. Simon Callow dies, exactly.

1:18I've known Anne Jenkin for too many years to count now. So Baroness Jenkin of Kennington to you listeners. She's packed several lifetimes into politics and in particular the cause of women's representation. And Jenkin sits as a conservative member of the House of Lords, but really, I think, should have been Britain's second female Tory prime minister. maybe third actually after Theresa May with whom she co-founded the Women to Win group to do God's still very necessary work of encouraging more women to go into politics. Anne Jenkin, welcome to Difficult Women. Thank you for having me Rachel. Let's start with your trailblazing game-changing grandparents and in particular your great grandfather willoughby dickinson who was the liberal mp for saint pancras who became a labor peer but who did a huge amount for women's suffrage yes i'm very proud of him um my great grandmother as he was dying said the one thing i really regret is not making willoughby a good conservative but he did do incredible stuff it was not a popular cause women's suffrage that he introduced the first women's suffrage bill in 1907 because his sister was a doctor, which in itself was quite unusual, and he couldn't see why he had the vote and she didn't.

2:43And when we talk about, you know, the Fawcett's and all the other campaigners, the Pankhurst and so on, we forget that it was the men who were inside the House of Commons that actually in the end made it happen because there were no women there anyway. So it may be the campaigners outside who campaigned away and Millicent Fawcett in her diary she said I always knew Willoughby was our one true friend so I'm extremely proud of him he introduced a women's suffrage bill I believe every year up to the first world war and then he lost his seat in 1918 but he did live long enough to see his daughter so my grandmother take her seat in 1937 as the 33rd ever woman MP which I'm extremely proud of so when people ask me you know who's your mentor or who is your role model I've got my own granny and your great-grandfather my great-grandfather both of whom I'm very proud of I mean it's just such a it's such a story that you are continuing their work on both fronts really yes I just add in Rachel that my other great-grandfather won the first Nobel Prize for physics in 1904 I did not inherit any of those genes whatsoever I was going to mention your other yeah um you're illustrious illustrious the other ones are in politics your great grandfather was the liberal emperor St Pancras yeah um your grandparents yes as well let's just run through those yeah so my um my grandfather who was called well various different things but were best known as J.C.C.

4:22Davidson and was Baldwin's right-hand man, party chairman in the 1920s, very instrumental in the sort of period of the national strike. Actually, he was originally, he was Bonner Law's private secretary and my grandmother is his goddaughter. My mother was his goddaughter. and Baldwin himself was a big fan of my grannies and used to write to her every day from Downing Street not the saucy stuff that we had with Asquith and Venetia Stanley but her name was Joan and he called her Little Maid like the Joan of Orleans, like the Maid of Orleans and so every day he would write to Little Maid and tell her what was going on in Parliament although it was my grandfather that was his great friend but he somehow let it all hang out with Bernie.

5:15Have those letters been published or collected? No, but people have, yes. Well, Robert Rhodes-James wrote the memoir of my grandfather which is called Memoirs of a Conservative and anybody who follows the history of the Conservative Party will have read the book. So some of the letters are in there. I believe that some were burnt, which is annoying, but they are around and I have a cousin who is currently writing a book about the relationship between Baldwin and Churchill. And he has the letters, and I think he may be using a few of those for that as original source material. That's your maternal grandmother and grandfather.

5:51What about your paternal grandparents? Well, my grandmother died, I mean, it's so long ago, you can't even imagine it, but in 1917. Your grandmother died. Okay, getting my head around that. I know. Well, my father was born in 1910 and one of four. And his father died in 47, I think. But he was a scientist. And his father, the Nobel Prize winner, was a seriously brainy bloke. He not only discovered the inert gases in the cellar at home, where it had to be very, very stable, because being inert, they didn't weigh anything, and you had to. But it was in the days of the great Victorian polymath. But he also married Arthur Balfour's sister.

6:40who was herself in today's world would be a great scientist. And he would, when courting, send her mathematical equations to solve. You know, I thought you'd be interested in trying to work this out. But on their honeymoon, I hope I've got this right, they went down the Nile and he wrote a book out of his brain, no Google, no library, nothing else, no reference books, on the theory of sound, which is still used as a textbook today. So, I mean, how you write a whole book on the theory of sound while you're on your honeymoon, I do not know. But Miss Balfour and he were a very formidable couple, so she would help him with the experiments.

7:19And his sister-in-law, her sister, who was also another brainy woman who in another world would have had some credit herself, used to help him with his scientific experiments. And we've still got the library, sorry, not the library, the laboratory at my brother's home, and academics and scientists are allowed to come and look at it, but it's not open to the general public. And you're one of how many siblings? Well, there are three of us and I'm the oldest, my sister next and my brother at the bottom, the precious one. The baby, I'm sure he's still... You went to Sherbourne Girls. Yeah. I remember going to be shown Sherbourne Girls by my father who was at Sherbourne and I took one look at it and ran.

8:04Well, it was an odd choice because I live in Essex. I'm still privileged enough to live in the house that I was home, that I was brought up in. I'm in the bedroom I shared with my sister 65 years ago. So it's a long way from Essex. But of course, in those days, we weren't allowed out. We didn't have ex-yats. And the reason I think it was chosen is because my father was a governor of an Essex school called Felstead. The headmaster there had three rather spectacularly successful daughters. And my dad thought, I want girls like those girls. and so without taking a huge amount of interest in the challenges that that would provide in terms of getting there sent me off to Sherbourne.

8:46Long way away. And I didn't see one's parents for months at a time then. I mean it wasn't like those children that were sent you know from India age three but it was a long way to go. But I've just been back to school for the first time since I left in 1973 because my housemistress was going to be 90 and I thought if not now when? and I thought I might get PTSD but actually I enjoyed it. I realised what a gorgeous place it was when you're shivering on the hockey pitch you don't notice or care. But I'm glad to say I found two of my oldest friends and I'm going to see them in August and I've not seen them really since I left school so we're going to hang out together and see whether we've still got anything in common apart from school.

9:26That's wonderful. You didn't go to university so you come from a very egalitarian academic background and yet you went to secretarial college? Yes, my father who died in 1981 a long time ago was sort of Edwardian, he was born in 1910 so it was another world and he had a sort of motto be good sweet maid let who will be clever. I know, I know, I don't blame you for making anything. Well I wasn't very I wasn't very clever and I didn't work very hard and I seem to have managed without going to university. No, no, I'm not decrying it. I'm not decrying it at all. But it is odd. I mean, I don't think 50 % of people should, of children should go, or students should go to university.

10:18I think he still thought, you know, I'd go to secretarial college, do it. Have you ever read a book called Jobs for the Girls, which is part of a series, it's also part of Terms and Conditions. she's called Ysander Maxton something oh yes I do weirdly yes and I helped with her book about summer holidays Ysander Maxton Graham so she wrote a book called Jobs for the Girls which was about the limited number of jobs we had of my sort of generation you were either an air stewardess or a secretary or a teacher or a cook lots of girls did cookery courses and then did those director's lunches and so on but I'm showing my age and however I'm very glad now to be able to type even though it's not very well or fast but at least it was a useful skill.

11:05Where did you do your secretarial course? I did it at the Queens in was it in Queensgate or somewhere like that but I managed to have glandular fever at least twice while I was doing it. It was a lot of snogging in those days and so I had at least three attempts at it and my shorthand is still pretty poor I have to say. Shorthand's very hard especially Absolutely Pittman. I can't not mention, if you mention the snogging, I mean, the whole Richard Curtis, was he a boyfriend? And is that why he puts a Bernard in every film he makes? It came a little bit later. He was a boyfriend, but only a snogging boyfriend.

11:42OK, I get your drift. And I didn't know about the Bernard until quite late on. And in fact, I met Emma somewhere and she said, Emma Freud. and she said, do you know that he's never written anything without a Bernadine? And then, of course, you kind of see it everywhere and quite a few ended up on the cutting room floor. But the four weddings part of it, definitely, you can see in my wedding video and my sister's wedding photos, you can see him making notes. We were very much that date of... So Richard Curtis came to your wedding? Yeah, sure. He went to a lot of weddings in those days. So, yes.

12:22Do you think that he modelled at least one of the weddings on your wedding and four weddings? I think he modelled it on. It would be an exaggeration. But I did make a speech, which lots of girls didn't do in those days. Women didn't do. And an old boy at the back did keel over. And if you remember in the film. Simon Callow dies. Simon Callow dies, exactly. Ivo's convinced that a disastrous best man speech he made, Richard Curtis, was in the crowd. It might be. It all kind of gets fed into the mix. I think that he was sort of just mulling it all over at that point. It's a brilliant film. And yes, it is, absolutely.

13:01I wish weddings were more like that now. They're now so over the top. Well, we've just had one which was quite similar. And my elder son got married two weekends ago. And it was a proper country wedding. And in my introductory welcome, I was able to say this is the sixth wedding we've had in the same church and in our garden since 1981. And all the brides have had different visions and blah, blah. But I did say the first two featured in Four Weddings and Funeral. And I think this one may be a feature-length film in its own right because we had drones and things. But it will look lovely and it'll look a little bit like Four Weddings because the flowers were gorgeous and the singing was gorgeous.

13:43And they worked very hard in our garden to make it look nice. And so it was a very happy occasion. Well, congrats. Marzeltoff. Yeah. So you went to Queen's College or Queensgate secretarial course. Then you worked for what you describe as a battle axe. Tell us about that. This was sort of your entry into politics, really. You're really going back a long way, Rachel. I think my first job was in central office. I mean, I know it's my first job. And I worked in something called the speaker's department. and what would happen is that in the days when we had sort of mass membership is that I worked for a woman called Miss Vivian Petherick, MBE, who wore sort of lace-up shoes, but she was a sort of senior party official.

14:31Anyway, what would happen is I would take dictation, which in those days I could vaguely do, and it would go something like this. They were all sent to Michael Heseltine or Dr. Rhodes-Boysen, who were the most popular speakers, So it would go, Dr. Rhodes Boyson, MAMP, 77, Paynes Lane, Pinner, Middlesex. Dear Dr. Boyson, the Hatfield Peveral branch of the Braintree constituency have asked me to invite you to their strawberry tea on Tuesday the 9th of July. And so on. And I did about five of those letters a day and then I ate chocolate and read novels. And that was the extent of my first job, probably.

15:09Got fatter and fatter. And I was certainly there for that very hot summer of 76, because that's when I sort of used to drive down to Oxford off to work and snog boys and then come back again next day for work.

15:27When did you meet your ex, Bernard Jenkins, who was an MP? Quite a lot later, because I then went from there. I did a few other things, but I then worked in the House of Commons for various MPs for quite a long time, a varying quality, but definitely quantity, because I've worked for three at a time as the only member of staff. And that is enough to make most people faint at the thought of it. But of course, we had no technology of any kind. So you're typing letters by hand? Yes, having taken a dictation, licking the envelopes, photocopying a lot of things, I think, as I'm in my memory. And I think we by then had a telephone on our desk.

16:10But before that, just before that, the attendant would have to call you to the phone and you'd have to go into a phone box somewhere and pick it up. And I was in the next door room to Cecil Parkinson's secretary, who was the one. Sarah Keys, of course. Sarah Keys, who got herself into trouble. Well, he got her into trouble, too. Yeah, OK. So that's his true. and actually it was a fantastically good fun job. The gin bottle came out at about 12. All the MPs suddenly turned up at about 12. We had dogs. And I remember one old MP saying, this is the closest place to heaven that I know. It was in our secretarial room with the gin bottle at 12 o 'clock.

16:49But it was a very good learning curve and I really, no, I learnt a lot and I had a really good time. and anyway, a lot of this is for my memoirs. No, I'm loving it. I hope you do write a memoir. But so politics came with your mother's milk and sort of you knew then, you knew your way around the commons. I knew my way around the commons, but I never really wanted, I kept making dashes for freedom and the elastic snapped me back. I did a few other jobs. I worked in a very early lobbying company for a bit, which is where I was working when I met Bernard in 1984 at the party conference, the year of the bomb.

17:26In Brighton. In Brighton. And because things moved very quickly, including the earth at those points, we heard the bomb go off at about three in the morning. And his father, Patrick, was in the cabinet at the time. And he rang the police, who extraordinarily answered. And he said, have we just heard a bomb? and can you confirm whether members of the cabinet were in it? And they amazingly rang back. We didn't have mobile phones or anything. I can't imagine how we did that, but anyway. And they said, we can confirm all the cabinet are accounted for, which was not true, of course, as it turned out.

18:05So we walked down, and I can picture it now, the kind of the front of the Grand Hotel with this gaping hole and Keith Joseph with his red box and other people wandering around in their pyjamas. and it was quite a sight and I can remember it quite clearly. And I can remember, of course, Mrs Thatcher insisting on the show going on. And with Norman Tebbett being taken out of her feet. Me too, in his pyjamas. Covered in dust. Covered in dust. But did any of the members of the cabinet die? No. No, John Wakeham's wife died and there were others that died. But what they said was we can confirm all members of the cabinet are accounted for.

18:43But anyway, we tracked Patrick down, although I could never have called him Patrick in those days Mr Jenkins Yes because he wasn't your father-in-law No he certainly was not he was a very senior cabinet minister and so the first time I met him he'd swapped beds with a journalist who would then went out to poke about and see what was happening and so the first time I met him was when we woke him up to check he was okay so that was 1984 and quite a journey since then as well Very much so in 1987, Bernard was contesting a Glasgow seat and you did too. How did that work out? Oh, it was ridiculous, really.

19:25What happened was Bernard was going to fight a seat. He was a very thrusting, young candidate type person. Still very thrusting. I love the no comment that came up. So he just kind of was going to get the first, you know, hopeless seat that kind of came up. It just happened that like three or four Glasgow seats were selecting. So he, anyway, slightly to his surprise, got the first one that came up, which was Glasgow Central. And then I assumed I'd go up and help him, you know, sort of plod around knocking on doors with him. And then somebody, well, the man who subsequently became my chairman said, don't suppose you'd consider doing it yourself, would you, as you're sort of political and you're here and we can't find anybody else to stand in Scotland.

20:12And I'm like, well, it's not really my gig. But I did. I did two. I think I did two interviews for two different seats, Proven and Govan. And anyway, I got selected for Govan, which is Easter House, which then became famous when Ian Duncan Smith finally went there and had a sort of apparition about poverty. And I do remember. I don't remember very much. We borrowed the house of Gerry Malone, who was the MP for Aberdeen South, I think, and lived in Glasgow. Were there by-elections on the same day? No, it was a general election, but he was fighting his seat in Aberdeen. Oh, sorry. It was a general election.

20:51And there was a very noisy parrot. I don't remember much else about it. And Bernard came to my public meetings. He was the only Conservative, and I went to his, and he was the only Conservative. And, I mean, you know, they weighed the votes there. But I do remember thinking, why did these people pour out of their tower blocks to vote for more of the same? And, of course, eventually they realized they didn't have to vote Labour, that they could vote SNP. But, I mean, I got 7.7 % of the vote. I think that's very good. Well, I think it was, I think 7%, it had 7 % private sector housing in those days.

21:26And I did rather a good stunt, which was put a£500 deposit down on a former council flat, which was refundable the day after the election. So I was the only candidate who could say they were going to live there. Exactly. I mean, I was quite a one for stunts. I did a very good sponsored swim of an Olympic sized pool and I got all the conservative MPs, which in those days we had a few, to sponsor me. And then I handed over the check to the disabled children's school in the swimming pool and all that sort of stuff. Got lots of coverage or other pointless, really. Did you enjoy the experience of standing for election, even in an unwinnable seat?

22:04And did you think that might be the start of a political career? Well, that's a good question, Rachel, because what I would say to people starting it out is give it a go and see what you think. But I didn't really like it. I didn't like the hostility. I didn't like them spitting at you in the street because of the colour of your rosette. And it was easier then than it is today. But I think you've got to be resilient and tough. And I'm probably not really tough. I mean, I've toughened up because life has made you have to. But I wasn't really then. And I'm not very good on my feet, which is why I shouldn't really be here.

22:38But anyway, I think you're very funny and quick. So I don't know why you say that. Well, it's the policy stuff. I find detailed policy pretty dull. And I mean, I like to operate in the shadows, but make stuff happen. So anyway, I decided it wasn't for me, but he wanted to do it anyway. So it was quite a good thing that I could then support him and have babies and stuff like that. So that worked out. Just while we're on the hostility and the agro and abuse, especially a woman Tory might get, be it the receiving end of. In 2018, you made the headlines for using the C word in Parliament when you were actually talking about this, the abuse received by politicians.

23:22and how it can risk damaging democracy. This is a podcast. You're allowed to say what you said. So can you sort of reprise that episode for us? I can't quite remember. You're allowed to use the C and F words. That's a good thing because I do quite a lot. So you were speaking in a debate on social media regulation. Oh, well, there you go. You pointed to research showing Tory parliamentary candidates, especially women, were more likely to receive intimidation than candidates from other parties. and you said during the election campaign in June the Ealing and Central Acton Conservative candidate was met daily outside her home by a large group of momentum and labour activists yelling at her.

24:02And do you remember what you were trying to say? Yes, I know I said fucking Tory cunt, yeah. And you said that she was called a fucking Tory cunt. Yeah. In front of her child. Yeah, I mean that's the... And I mean I may be wrong but I would be very surprised that if you found any conservative activist who would ever behave like that or use language like that. It is just not our way of doing things. And I'm more and more worried leaping forward because, of course, it's much worse now than it was then. And, I mean, resilience was always an important part for anybody going into public life. You've got to be as tough as old boots.

24:45But it's much, much worse today. It was interesting, that was 2018. You see, that was the beginning of the, you know, social media. So, I mean, that's something that Labour is apparently dealing with, social media banned for under-18s. Under-16s. Sorry, the genie is out of the bottle. I mean, I think most women that I know deal with it by not looking at it, and that's probably the best way of coping. The under-16 thing is a slightly different thing because I have been involved in that campaign to hopefully ban social media for under-16s because I think it's so damaging. But that is another whole, probably whole podcast.

25:26That is, I'm afraid, because also it explains about children, not, you know, ADHD. The whole Jonathan Haidt stuff. All of it, absolutely. But I'm very committed to him and his thesis on how damaging it is for young people and how they never play and they can't communicate. to know I think that but anyway as you say another story I first came across you when I mean you've always to me been a champion of women going into politics even though it wasn't as it were for you at that point to be an MP while Bernard was also an MP for your family lives yeah but I rather agree with you about it I mean I think everyone should stand for office at least once for something yeah See if you like it.

26:10Whether it's your garden credit. Yeah. But it wasn't for me either. I realised it wasn't for me. Yeah. You just know. Literally, you feel it in your body. Yes. And actually, you know, I really enjoyed, I don't want to do it anymore, but I enjoyed doing the constituency stuff with him. But as a plus one, a two-five. I know, but I don't mind about that. I really don't. I mean, I enjoyed being part of a team and being support and going to events. And I mean, as I say, I don't want to do it anymore. But I've been to some amazing things and done some amazing things as a two for her. I'm not bothered by that.

26:49That's a two for the price of one, by the way. You were appointed a conservative life peer by David Cameron in 2011. Yeah. In recognition of all the work you've done, not just for charity. Yeah. but in terms of encouraging women yeah women to win you founded co-founded with Theresa May who became our second female prime minister and you know this has been a success but only up to a point only up to a point well so here's here's the issue when we started I remember the very first conversation she and I and other senior people the late great Shireen Ritchie who sadly died much too young and um a few others we had chairman of westminster council uh she was kensington schilce she was a councillor okay she was madonna's mother-in-law actually oh yes uh but she so there were a group of us that had a conversation it was a day of seven seven so i can date it and um we'd been stuck at seven percent of the parliamentary sorry nine percent i think but spin that round that's 91 percent men uh despite having had the 33rd ever So a woman MP is my granny.

27:57And I remember after that election, which was the Michael Howard election, we were still stuck at 9%. And I did an interview. I'd written an article saying, you know, a party needs to take this seriously. And I went and did an interview with Women's Hour with Jenny Murray, which was quite frightening. And I was sitting in the green room with, I think, a comedian. And a woman came in, a researcher, and she said to this other woman, you're on after a piece about women in the conservative party so that won't take long will it and they just sniggered and it was so shameful and i was so embarrassed i thought we've got to do and i suppose i you know i've been saying to myself when is somebody going to do something about it and i stopped looking over my shoulder and looked in the mirror and i thought i have to do this i've got the time i've got the energy i've got the you know new enough people i could make stuff happen and i thought we'd just be there to rattle the cage and kind of be annoying for them, be a difficult woman for them.

28:50But actually, David Cameron then became elected leader two weeks after we launched. And he sort of embraced it. And he said his first speech, he said, I want the country to better reflect. I want my party to better reflect the country I seek to serve. And so we were kind of off with his blessing. Not that he did an awful lot. But anyway, so Teresa and I went around the country sort of stirring up discontent and trying to find women. I mean, there were only about 10 women on the candidates list then, I think. And we crept up from 9 % to 16 % and then to 20 % and then to 24%. And so it was from something like 27 to 49 to something and up to 87, I think, by the 24 election.