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SKY NEWS – SOPHY RIDGE ON SUNDAY – 10.00 – 22.01.17 – FEMALE MPs ROUND TABLE DISCUSSION

SOPHY RIDGE: Now as we were just talking about this weekend, hundreds of thousands have marched together in protest against the policies and statements of President Donald Trump but is Westminster doing better than Washington?  I sat down with Labour’s Jess Phillips, the Conservative Nus Ghani and the SNP’s Tasmina Ahmed-Sheik to try and find out.   So what I was going to say first of all is how it was when you first entered Westminster and what were your first impressions of Westminster, because it is such a crazy place isn’t it?

NUS GHANI: Well the Chamber is so much smaller than you think and the way you think your voice is going to sound is so much different in the Chamber so it’s really hard to get your voice heard and also to project yourself and sometimes as women we can go a little bit higher.

JESS PHILLIPS: Shush – I get a lot because I’m very vocal, I’m not going to criticise people for shouting out because I will shout out when I don’t agree with people when they’re speaking, I get a lot of “shush”!

SOPHY RIDGE That’s a bit rude isn’t it?

JESS PHILLIPS: They would never do it to a man, they would never … don’t shush me.

TASMINA AHMED-SHEIK: And the big thing we get as women I think is ‘You don’t understand’ or ‘The Member doesn’t understand’ – we do understand, we just have a different viewpoint to you.  But it’s constant, there is just a whole load of male noise around you trying to drown you out and you have to raise your voice to it, and if you do that you’re a shouty female.

SOPHY RIDGE: Or you’re shrill.

TASMINA AHMED-SHEIK: Or you’re shrill, right, because men don’t ever raise their voices or speak loudly.  Or maybe it’s because we’re listening and it’s out of respect, so you face all of these criticisms and you are constantly having to defend your position.

NUS GHANI: I mean this is the issue if you’re a woman, the fact that you constantly have to explain yourself, explain your success takes away time you can actually explain exactly what you’re trying to achieve.  I think that’s the big thing I hadn’t appreciated, in any other job I haven’t had to explain my faith or my gender but somehow I have to waste five minutes of my time having to justify why I’m here instead of just saying I was the best candidate for the job and it should just be a ten second thing.

JESS PHILLIPS: I deserve to be there and that’s the end of it.

NUS GHANI: Or I just won and that is what it is but the fact that you’ve got to constantly at every, at many interactions, have to constantly explain how you’ve become an MP because you’re a woman is … there has to be a stage where you just stop asking.

JESS PHILLIPS: And I always get asked about children.

TASMINA AHMED-SHEIK: Or if you don’t have children, why don’t you have children.  Of course we never even thought about that before signing for election, we didn’t even think about what was going to happen to our children, you know.

JESS PHILLIPS: I like joke answers so my joke answer when people say how do you cope with your children, I say oh very badly or I say, oh those aren’t my children, I just hired them for the leaflets.

SOPHY RIDGE: Is it still difficult, being a mother, having a family and working as an MP?

TASMINA AHMED-SHEIK: I think if we get the legislation right it should be difficult for both parents because we’re going to take equal responsibility for looking after children and we shouldn’t just allow ourselves to be in this syndrome of it’s just a woman’s problem.  Of course it’s challenging and it must be challenging for men also who have families at home too.  I’m a Scottish MP and I’m away from my family four days a week and it’s a long way away so that’s why it has to feel worth it and I think that’s another reason why I think we need more women in politics, because generally women come in because they want to make a difference.  Not because they automatically think they are going to be brilliant at the job but because they want to make a difference and I think then your kids see that and they watch you on the television and they can see mum’s doing something worthwhile.

SOPHY RIDGE:  Okay, so she’s not here on a Tuesday or Wednesday night but there she is, she’s holding the Prime Minister to account.

JESS PHILLIPS: My children knew Jo Cox and they knew her children and when she did my son said to me, it’s not worth it, it’s not worth it and you mustn’t go any more.  And I had to sit there and say to him, I’m sorry darling but the trouble is, is that it is worth it, it is worth going there and fighting for people like you, to make sure that normal kids in Birmingham get their voices heard.

NUS GHANI: We spend a lot of our time talking and listening to people and I think our families bear the brunt and we forget about that, partners and children who have got to put up with us and we’re knackered, you know!

JESS PHILLIPS: I was knackered when I had a job before I was here and it’s tough, there are tough moments but you can definitely do it and be a parent.

SOPHY RIDGE: The social media abuse, I mean I get it a bit as a female journalist, it is exhausting and some of it is a bit frightening as well.

TASMINA AHMED-SHEIK: It is, I mean there are people who think it’s okay now to threaten you online and I’m sure we’ve all had to make reports to the police, people have been arrested, people have been charged because they are committing criminal offences.

SOPHY RIDGE:  So you have all reported things to the police?

TASMINA AHMED-SHEIK: Absolutely.

JESS PHILLIPS: Oh yes, I’m constantly reporting stuff to the police.

TASMINA AHMED-SHEIK: Absolutely and it feels like it’s getting worse and worse because people see to think they have an increased licence to conduct themselves like this.

NUS GHANI: The rise of hate crime by angry white men is also an issue.

JESS PHILLIPS: I think there is a genuine radicalisation that is going on, it’s going on on the internet.  The way we talk about the radicalisation of terrorists, the Trump era, there is a definite radicalisation going on of young men from the right wings, the sort of white supremacy and it is hitting poor vulnerable kids in this country who are perpetrating it and I see it in exactly the same terms as the radicalisation of any ideology.

TASMINA AHMED-SHEIK: We can’t be complacent, we have to be watchful of it all of the time because we have seen, first of all it was over the same issues, like you, it was like a triple whammy, oh she’s a woman, oh she’s a Muslim, oh she BME, let’s got for her and it really does put you off.  I don't know how you both feel but I’ve gone home and wondered why I’m doing it.  My husband says why are we doing this and my kids say why are you doing this mum?  But the thing is this is how the world works, people want you to go away back into your corners and not be a voice so you have to stand up to this but we have seen an increase in it.  We have to make sure we don’t allow it to be normalised.

SOPHY RIDGE:  So does it make a difference having a female Prime Minister then?

JESS PHILLIPS: I think if you’re a young woman or you’re a kid and you look up and the Prime Minister is a woman, that can only be a good thing.

NUS GHANI: The defining feature is it’s showing what women can achieve when they are in politics and I think that’s going to encourage more women to think that this is a job for them, that it’s not alien to them, that they can do it and that’s why I say whenever I am trying to do interviews trying to reach out to people, all I want you to do is to think that you can be heard doing this because …

TASMINA AHMED-SHEIK: Anyone can do it.

NUS GHANI: We’ve all come from very different backgrounds, none of us are establishment, none of our parents thought we’d end up doing this, it was never discussed at home, none of us I assume aspired to do this when we were younger but we’ve achieved it so if we can do it anybody can and having a female PM, especially for a whole generation of people who don’t remember that we had a female PM before, it’s great.

SOPHY RIDGE:  More generally on experiences in Westminster, I’m wondering if you have any anecdotes of things that have happened to it. I’ve certainly got a few after working the Lobby.  I remember walking through Portcullis House with a male journalist colleague going over to talk to an MP and being introduced, I hadn’t got a lobby pass on, I was wearing work stuff and he said, oh do you work for the fashion pages?  I was like, no, because why would I be in Portcullis House if that happened?

JESS PHILLIPS: To be completely honest, a completely anonymous MP who I couldn’t point out now because they looked like all the other MPs, said to me when I was first there – and to be fair there were a lot of new MPs – ‘Oh who do you work for?’  So I said, the people of Birmingham Yeardley.

SOPHY RIDGE:  Good answer.

JESS PHILLIPS: First of all it was so embarrassing and I was embarrassed for him but also you think, oh my gosh, I’m never going to fit in here.

SOPHY RIDGE:  So assuming you were a secretary effectively.

JESS PHILLIPS: Yes, essentially.

TASMINA AHMED-SHEIK: I remember being in the Tea Room and some MP saying, oh it’s the mad Jock – to say it straight to your face, mad Jock!  

SOPHY RIDGE Oh my goodness.

TASMINA AHMED SHEIK: And commenting on what you wear and …

SOPHY RIDGE So what do they say about what you wear then?

TASMINA AHMED-SHEIK: Oh, nice stockings Tasmina, somebody said to me once …

SOPHY RIDGE Goodness.

TASMINA AHMED-SHEIK:  They weren’t even stockings!

JESS PHILLIPS: You should have taken them off and said, here, wear them yourself.  

TASMINA AHMED-SHEIK: But now as time goes on and they get to realise there are women in this parliament who are not going to accept that kind of behaviour and once they realise that the women who are working in a collegiate manner collectively will not accept it, they are much more careful.

NIS GHANI: Unlike any other job that we’ve had, unlike any other job we may go on to have, there is no certainty in how you day is going to pan out.  It could end at 8pm or at one in the morning the next day and we just don’t know until the evening kicks off.

SOPHY RIDGE: Fascinating stuff.  Any final thoughts from anyone? It’s been really … I could literally just chat to you guys all day, it’s been great.

TASMINA AHMED-SHEIK: There’s always so much to say, I think from a … I mean it’s really good to see how well we can all work with each other and achieve so much because we have so much shared ambition.  I would really just like to say I have a genuine concern for young people and women who are thinking they might like to enter politics but all of it seems so daunting and off-putting but we’re there  and I’ll to continue to work to create a better place for them to enter so I hope people watching this will think I can absolutely do this because these three can.

JESS PHILLIPS: And if we can get there, anyone can!

NUS GHANI: Be ambitious and be bold. We’re here and we’re here to hold your hand once you come up to Westminster.

SOPHY RIDGE:  And it feels like things are improving.

TASMINA AHMED-SHEIK: Yes.

NUS GHANI: Yes.

JESS PHILLIPS: There is a sisterhood in there in the House across the parties.  Not everyone joins in but the vast majority do.

SOPHY RIDGE:  Great.  Well it’s been great to chat, thanks for coming along.

JESS PHILLIPS: Our pleasure.

SOPHY RIDGE And not eating too much food!  Thanks.  Who says MP’s from different parties can’t work together?