Is Ruth Kelly’s resignation a sign of inequality?

When I first heard Ruth Kelly was resigning I cheered. I care little for her opinions and      have always been troubled by her position of power. Although, to be fair I guess I should explain why Ruth Kelly makes me shudder.

It’s not just that she has made serious blunders. One of her departments was responsible for losing the details of 3 million learner drivers. She publicly bickered in the most embarrassing way with Jamie Oliver over school dinners, and took her dyslexic child out of state education, flouted six special schools in her area to finally put him in private education. Sending the message to all us have nots that if your child has special needs and you don’t have £15.000 a year to educate them privately, you’re screwed. She even managed to remain in place when her department allowed convicted paedophiles to work in schools. Yet, like I say, it’s not just these cock ups; it’s not even the way she votes that irks me. Even though she has voted in favour for detaining terror suspects without charge for 42 days, the renewal of Trident, the introduction of foundation hospitals, for the war in Iraq, and the astonishingly draconian idea of ID cards. None of which sit well with me. No, it was her more troubling habit of abstaining due to ‘conscience’ which irritated me. This insinuated that MP’s who did vote somehow did so without conscience.

Kelly’s abstinence record includes

The proposed reduction of abortion time limits

Equal access to services for single women and gay couples to use IVF

Reducing the gay age of consent to 16,

Gay and single parent adoption,

Section 28,

Civil partnerships,

Equal rights for temp and agency workers

The right, under the freedom of information act, for the public to know the inner workings of parliament.

The green taxes amendment

The animal welfare bill

Child Support Agency amendment (2006) To name but a few.

I guess I don’t need to say me and Ruth Kelly will never be buddies. Something I think both of us are happy about.

When I first heard she was stepping down, (after celebrating), I wondered why. When statements suggested it was to spend more time with her family, I just didn’t buy it. Why now? I asked myself. Wasn’t she the ‘wonder-woman’ who eleven days after being elected an MP had her first child and became the first minister to have baby changing facilities in her office!? If she could manage it then, what’s changed? Has the wonder worn off? I was baited; I thought she’d left over the Human Fertilisation & Embryology Bill. Abortion is always an emotive subject for the best of us, let alone for a strict catholic and alleged member of Opus Dei.

Then I considered it.

The average day of an MP is not a family-friendly one. As Oona King explains, “One of the things about being an MP is that you often don’t have an average day. The working day usually goes on very late… very, very late.” In the video interview with Video Jug she continues, saying “You work a normal day like everyone does and then you work all evening too. And you work most of the weekend as well.”

http://www.videojug.com/interview/becoming-an-mp-2

So if a woman as intelligent, opinionated, and determined as Ruth Kelly can’t balance life as an MP what message does this send out to us citizens?

It tells me Parliament is not a very female-family-friendly place to work. They purport to offer equal access to opportunity, but what chance do mothers have of really becoming MP’s and remaining sane? With the majority of child-rearing still up to women, surely it is time for Government departments to practice what they preach.

Ruth Kelly states if it hadn’t been for her husband she could not have done her job. How many wives of MP’s crave this credit too? Just how many fatherless, (and in a minority of cases motherless), children of MPs are there? More importantly, does this mean single parents could not retain the position of MP? I wonder if they just don’t consider a career in politics for this reason. Shame. Sadly it is democracy that suffers. It is voters left with irrelevant representation, something set to worsen if the silver-spoon brigade gets in at the next election.

To add to this bizarre turn of events. The press has been clamouring to ‘understand’ why Ruth Kelly wants to spend more time at home, neglecting to question why it’s so difficult to be a mother and an MP. Male MP’s manage it. Gordon Brown himself said in the Guardian that “as a father” he understood Ruth Kelly’s decision, “She has missed several years and she wants to be with them as much as possible.” Hopefully he will be next to resign then. I think the nation would like to see him spend more time with his children. Or is that still women’s work? I would have preferred him to say ‘we are looking into the reasons why Ruth Kelly cannot balance her work/life responsibilities. Perhaps parliament needs to take some responsibly and update its equal opportunities policy’. No such luck.

This doesn’t change my fundamental dislike of Ruth Kelly’s politics. But I defend her right to pursue a career of her choice, irrespective of her motherhood. I just don’t understand why people are not lining up to demand she is given flexible working hours. If no one will stand up and defend her right to the equality a working mother is entitled to, then what chance do the rest of us working mothers have?

Especially the ones without a choice, you know, those single mothers forced back to work by Labour.