Lady numbers
The fate of Rachel Reeves shows politics is still sexist and now data is being bent to suit the same agenda
Numbers are the universal language apparently. I went to the cinema to see Disclosure Day at the weekend and a key plot point (in as much as there is a plot) is that aliens and humans can converse in maths.
A leading mathematician told me once that he felt he had more in common with lifeforms on the other side of the universe than the person sitting next to him on the Clapham omnibus because, for the alien to get here or communicate in some way, that creature must understand the same maths as he.
Another pertinent point of Disclose Day is that even aliens are sexist. They apparently decide to imbue a man with maths and a woman with empathy. So not such a higher intelligence that they can see past gender stereotypes.
If Spielberg’s aliens are beholden to sexism it may be too much to expect more from the Labour party.
In fact, it would be foolish to expect more from a party that’s never had a permanent female leader and is about to appoint yet another man to the role.
But what’s fascinating is the role of numbers in all this. And the way they are being used to mask old fashioned sexism.
When Andy Burnham won the Makerfield by-election last week the numbers were properly astonishing. Few MPs win with the bulk of all votes cast. As such Burnham’s achievement is to be heralded and respected. It was likely the scale of his victory that convinced Keir Starmer the game was up and, perhaps, that Burnham represented a better bet for the party and potentially the country.
As plenty of commentators said in the wake of the by-election, you cannot argue with or dismiss the numbers.
But it seems you can dismiss some numbers.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves is slowly turning the UK economic tanker around. The method may not be to everyone’s liking (no policy, particularly economic policy, is). But you cannot argue with or dismiss the numbers. Growth is holding up, even in the face of Trump’s Iranian misadventure. Inflation is kind of OK. It’s not perfect and it feels a little shoogly but the economic indicators are largely pointing in the right direction.
Despite doing a good job Reeves is likely to lose her beloved job at the Treasury.
It would not be hard to find a woman who can recognise that scenario.
If Burnham wants to puncture claims that he’s too laddish he’d do well to keep Reeves in post. The Starmer/Reeves double act never caught on because both are too technocratic and clever in an age that demands communication and personality. But teaming reliable Rachel with charismatic Burnham may be a match that makes more sense in terms of policy and politics. (Let’s face it, it could be dressed up as a Blair/Brown reboot).
It won’t happen of course. The Treasury is the prize bauble Burnham can and will use to reward support and drive his agenda (whatever it may turn out to be). And Rachel Reeves will be yet another woman given a hard task who has made a decent fist of it but has then been elbowed aside as the result of male ego and confidence as manifested in the machinations between Burnham, Starmer and Streeting.
Given the way politics is going, with plenty of evidence of a gender based bifurcation as women break left and men lean right that may turn out to be ill advised.
I have yet to see a gender breakdown of the Makerfield result but one has to wonder if Burnham was helped by a female electorate keen to block a Reform candidate who did not entirely resile from some fairly unpleasant social media activity in the past and a party who, rightly or wrongly, have been widely reported as wanting to tax childless women and unpick equality legislation.
And in among the noise of Makerfield other women were sidelined.
Lara Bird won Arbroath and Broughty Ferry for the SNP.
And, more pertinently, Kemi Badenoch’s Tories picked up the Aberdeen South seat last week. Might we look back in years to come at last week’s entire set of by-elections as a turning point in politics if that Tory victory signals the start of the long road back for the party that history shows always win power in the end? Could Kemi’ s road to Downing Street start in Scotland’s north east?
That Aberdeen seat was the only one of the three that were contested to flip, and that makes it noteworthy. As per, Xiaolu Guo’s book Call Me Ishmaelle - a feminist retelling of Moby Dick and a more highbrow reference than Disclosure Day (you get all sorts of references here), “One has to read the changes. Only changes matter.”
The Prime Minister may be about to change but the treatment of Rachel Reeves - and the lack of outrage at it - suggest that when it comes to patriarchy and the gender equality that benefits us all too little changes.