Women Politicians In The United Kingdom

"Leadership understands that true success requires a strong team, where every member contributes their portion."

"Employers should consider giving furlough to parents – normally women – who are on the brink of burn out. People are telling me they are on the brink of quitting and if we aren’t careful when all of this is over it will be like the 1950s in terms of women’s careers”."

"I am very excited that I am now the longest-serving woman on City Council. I think that’s an accomplishment in itself, and hopefully girls will be able to see that they could be an elected official."

"Family is so important. We don’t pick and choose who our parents happen to be, but I was very fortunate, and my siblings were quite fortunate, to be able to be in a household where faith was important, that we understood values. You wanted to be a person of integrity. You realized how important your name happens to be."

"So I did what most people never do at a really senior level, was I just thought you know what, it's time to take some time off"

"I was really focused on making sure we could have as many family-friendly policies as we could, because I had the experience of being a mum, having to come back [to work] and knowing how it made some of the new mums feel,”"

"My view was if we do that we will encourage more women to come back and more women to be more senior, and stay with us through their career, and it worked"

"If you’re going to change the trajectory of a Black girl’s life in our community, then we need to understand what is the current quality of life of our girls."

"If you haven’t got a job that is flexible in terms of the hours you can do through the day, or a company that isn’t flexible, then some women won’t be able to work during this three month period [of lockdown].”"

"I was not looking to be an elected official. That was never a goal of a career, but I always knew that I had leadership skills, and I always wanted to help people."

"I'm a faithful woman; I do a lot of praying. Everything happens for a reason."

"To see the things my son has to deal with in his life, it isn't something I would want anyone to have to deal with, but he handles it with a lot of strength and always stays positive. He's gone through a lot, and what he's been through, so have we."

"Life is not fair. Once you're OK with that, you can move on."

"My goals were to expand my commitment to public service, continue to be a role model for girls and young women, and increase the access and opportunities for every citizen to live their best lives."

"I believed then, as I do now, that public service is a calling rooted in service to one another."

"You get to a stage where you say 'I've done my piece. I've grown quite a lot of shareholder value, I've done enough. And actually it needs to be a little bit more about me now.'”"

"Oh, we want to blow that little trumpet now, do we? Yeah, OK, let's get that dog whistle out."

"Horrific details of systematic child abuse in Oxford. Resonance w cases in Rochdale, Rotherham & elsewhere. Issues need wider inquiry now."

"I don't think that anyone is suggesting that the fact that he has carved them in stone means that, you know, he's absolutely, you know, not going break them or anything like that."

"Superficially, he is a black man. He went to Eton, I think; he went to a very expensive prep school, all the way through, the top schools in the country. If you hear him on the Today programme, you wouldn't know he is black."

"I don’t remember minding. I remember thinking it was all a bit sad that those were his views. I probably thought it was a bit unfair – but, you know, life is unfair."

"I remember when I was at college, at some do or another, people were passing round the bottle and I was – like everyone else – swigging out of it. And somebody was saying: ‘Oh no no no, you’re not somebody who should ever be seen swigging out of a bottle.’ It was the same sort of reaction,” she says, with a hint of satisfaction. There is a stubborn streak in Beckett, a dogged refusal to be pigeonholed or cowed, that has underpinned an extraordinary half-century in politics."

"He said to me: ‘You don’t do intimidation, do you, Margaret?’ And I hadn’t thought about it – haven’t thought about it since, really – but I sort of knew what he meant."

"I love objects that are shiny, glittery, colourful. Anything that has a strong sensory input. I consider them my friends."

"The book (62 images and quotes) sold 1,200 copies and was ordered from every continent in the world"

"I have a bond with objects because they give me what I want and I give them a purpose in return. They make me happy”. Paul"

"Another long term project A Peculiar Convenience, a tragi-comedic study of our cultural relationship with the natural world, was included in Val Williams’ show New Natural History (1999). I have continued with the work and it was more recently awarded as winner at the Urbanautica International Awards 2020. In 2021 fifteen images from A Peculiar Convenience, were shown in a group show of 13 international artists – un/natural, curated by Format’s Louise Fedotov-Clements and Niamh Treacy at the Lishui Photography Festival in China."

"I published Understanding Stanley – Looking through Autism in 2014, a highly personal, long term project about my eldest son, reviewed extensively in international press and on Photomonitor and Firecracker. It was widely praised both within and outside the autism community, for bringing a new and up to date understanding about autism to a wider audience. I have recently completed a commission from the Wellcome Collection, extending a 4 year project about autistic women."

"I knew that most of my shadow cabinet colleagues didn’t support me at all, and probably most of the PLP [parliamentary Labour party].” Why not? “I think some of them probably thought I shouldn’t have been deputy anyway, a mere woman"

"I remember one of my north‑east colleagues saying firmly in the tearoom one afternoon that there wasn’t a woman in the parliamentary party who was fit to be in the shadow cabinet"

"When someone is walking towards me smiling, I have no understanding of whether they are happy, pleased to see me, or laughing at me”."

"There is truth in the tale of the Ugly Duckling. If you are a swan and unrecognised as such, living with a duck family, that thinks you are a duck, expects you to behave like a duck, and at times might coerce you to be more like a duck – you have a problem… You will have poor self-esteem and the need to isolate yourself at the same time that you try not to be isolated. Indeed, if things get bad enough, you will eventually decide that further attempts at communication will only bring on more trouble, so you stop trying to communicate."

"I am a documentary photographer from London, making images and stories about family, disability/difference and community. I also have a particular interest in making work about the environment and our relationship with the natural world. I have had a number of documentary story commissions for Guardian Weekend magazine amongst others and also had work exhibited in galleries and festivals in the UK and across Europe including the National Museum of Photography and TV, the National Portrait Gallery. Also in Frankfurt, Paris, Bratislava, Landskrona (Sweden) and Lishui (China)."

"We meet on what neither of us knows will be the eve of the announcement of a snap general election. She decided, years ago, that she would retire at the next election, not because she was slowing down (at 81, she is as sharp as ever), but because Leo was. They always came as a package – he shelved his political ambitions to support hers, even attending her Whitehall meetings as an adviser – and she planned to spend her retirement looking after him, but he died in December 2021. Carrying on alone hasn’t always been easy."

"I was an engineering apprentice when there were 20 of us [women] out of 2,000 – and I was the only woman on my course for a part of it. You would just get used to how bitchy men are."

"This is a fun and educational activity book for teaching our precious children certain key scriptures in the Bible. Although there is no substitute for reading God’s Word daily, this book encourages children and parents to interact together through catchy memory hooks, beautiful illustrations, activity pages, interactive questions, and more. Your children will enjoy this book so much, they won’t even realize they are learning!"

"My Tourism Tsar will boost visitors."

"Perched precariously on the brink of adulthood, it's little wonder that teenagers wobble occasionally. All that love staff to deal with, exam stress and rails over what you can and can't wear. It's a nightmare. Yet the teenage years are also the stuff of dreams. The first kiss romance, your whole future blank canvas on which to paint your destiny. You just have to learn to ride the hormone fuelled rollercoasters with both hands in the air screaming "Whoopeeeee!""

"I will create a Community Champion for Voluntary and Charity organisations - they bring out the best in us all. Companies and communities need to be partners to address the challengers we face."

"I will bring out the best in people , business and communities. I will appoint a Town Centre Tsar with real powers and money to make sure our town centres thrive despite on-line competition."

"I will have a respected Business Ambassador working with me to promote our area and bring in new business through creating my Enterprise Areas and Business Zones. My plan will offer companies the opportunity to relocate from around the world and the UK, promoting all that is best about our people and place. I will also help our existing businesses thrive"

"We have a proud and remarkable history. Home to world class engineering and the hard sweat of workers who built the Industrial Revolution of the past. We have the expertise, passion and talent to be world leaders in the fourth Industrial Revolution of hi-tech, digital and new skilled jobs."

"I will not support congestion charging. Newcastle’s plans will kill off the city. I will demand better investment in transport and I want to bring in a one stop travel Oyster Card -like London, for North of Tyne."

"Brexit concerns business. I will offer support packages, and will lead Britain’s first Brexit Boost Area. Open for business to the world."

"I will bring a new generation of Council Housing. World class homes and local companies to build them. Homes with Ambition."

"Coun Nick Forbes got it right when he said about the Mayoral Election, ”This is no time for a novice”. I agree with Nick."

"There were an incredible amount of text books about autism, which were really only being read by people already with a vested interest in studying or understanding this little known (at the time), complex condition. I wanted to create something quite different in the awareness, understanding and acceptance of autism. I wanted to create a new visual language, a book that would be able to reach ‘under the skin’ and allow others outside of the autism community, to get a feeling about what it might feel like to be autistic"

"I also wanted to give voice to autistic adults and so I interviewed and included their words of their experiences of being autistic, alongside the images."

"Sometimes the pphysical mannerisms of someone who’s autistic, cause others to perceive us as ‘shifty’ or ‘trouble’. Many people like me find that as adults we can’t buy something in a shop without being followed around by a security guard, which is ironic given that we are typically painstakingly law-abiding."

"Past battles and political Punch and Judy shows are not for me. I will build a bridge to the brilliant future we all have- the right leader at the right time doing the right things. That leader is me."