So your inbox will no doubt have been overflowing with Black Friday deals that aren’t that great these past few days.
And this coming Monday is apparently when we all buy our pressies online.
Good to see the Lib Dems get into that.
An email from Jo Swinson dropped into my inbox this morning:
97 years ago, Margaret Wintringham took her seat in the House of Commons as the MP for Louth in Lincolnshire.
She was the third woman ever to be elected as an MP, the second ever to take her seat, and the first British woman to become an MP.
She was the Liberal’s first woman MP
In Parliament, she campaigned to extend the Representation of the People Act 1918 to all women over 21, as it was for men. She campaigned for equal pay for equal work and for girls as well as boys to receive state scholarships.
Our women leaders in the Liberals and the Liberal Democrats have been revolutionaries. And this year, the 100 year anniversary of (some) women getting the vote, we want to celebrate the last 100 years of amazing Lib Dem women in the party.
Want to be part of the celebrations? We’ve designed this t-shirt to proudly celebrate our Lib Dem feminist heroines.
Well, of course I bought the t-shirt. It has some of my favourite people on it, from Cambridge’s excellent Sarah Brown to Christine Jardine who is fighting for State Pension equality for women and co-sponsoring the bill which aims to give Northern Irish women access to abortion, to our energetic and fabulous President Sal Brinton to my first political hero Shirley Williams to Lynne Featherstone who fought for same sex marriage, to first Liberal woman MP Margaret Wintringham to Wales’ progressive Education Secretary Kirsty Williams.
I’m so glad they haven’t gone for just MPs, not just because all of our women MPs would have fitted on a t-shirt, but for women who have made huge steps forward for equality and liberalism.
Note to Lib Dem Image, though – why can’t we have one delivery charge per order? I slightly resented having to pay extra for a tiny pin that is most likely going to be in the same parcel.
I also prefer the choice between curvy and less curvy t-shirts that they have on the Awkward Squad’s merchandise page.
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings. You can find her on Bluesky at caronmlindsay.bsky.social
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
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3 Comments
I’m a bit disappointed that Nancy Seear didn’t get on the shirt. She was an inspiration to so many of us in the 70s and 80s, with her get stuck in attitude at the by-elections that we won in those days.
A truly wonderful woman.
This selection of Liberal/Lib Dem “feminist heroines” does seem somewhat arbitrary. I’m glad to see the wonderful Shirley Williams featured, but agree with David Evans that Nancy Seear was an unfortunate omission. A strong historical case could also be made for Violet Bonham Carter – and what about some of our other more recent parliamentarians, etc, who are also excluded?
No doubt Violet Bonham Carter deserves a place on a T shirt but she never identified as a feminist. A number of prominent Liberal women from the past did not do so, so worth double checking.