Feature: Young Iron Ladies Make Their Mark Britian Looking Towards Youth
100 young people from all over the country flocked to London on Tuesday 10th April to offer a glimpse of Britain’s political future and to show there’s girl power in the future of politics.
The outspoken young politicians from the UK Youth Parliament and British Youth Council took the battle of the sexes to the benches, as they debated the role of women in Parliament in the House of Commons set from the hit film The Iron Lady to celebrate the film’s release on Blu-ray and DVD (30 April). Participants ranged from former Young Apprentice candidate Mohamed Awale, 17, to the youngest person to be elected as a councillor in the UK, Siobhan Brazier, 19.
Despite eight times as many women serving in Parliament today as there were when Thatcher came to power in 1979, only one in ten of us feels the next British Prime Minister will be female, whilst barely a third (38%) think there will be a woman PM in the next ten years.
Yet that is all about to change. Over half of the members of the UK Youth Parliament (MYPs) are female, and many believe it is from this crop of young people that Britain’s next Iron Lady shall emerge.
Rosina St James, 21, Vice Chair of Participation and Development at the British Youth Council, who led the first motion of yesterday’s lively debate, said “I’m really proud to say that nearly half of the Members of the UK Youth Parliament are female. Twenty per cent are from black and ethnic minority communities and ten per cent have some sort of disability making the Youth Parliament much more representative of modern society than the current elected House of Commons which still has only twenty-two per cent women.”
THE IRON LADY: A COMMONS DEBATE
The one-off event was supported by Pathé Productions Ltd, in association with the British Youth Council and the Youth Parliament of Great Britain, to mark the Blu-ray and DVD release of The Iron Lady on 30 April 2012. It took place at Wimbledon Studios, SW19 3TL, and the following motions were discussed:
· Who do you think would make a good woman prime minister and why?
· This house believes that politics is a man’s world, and that the only way for women to succeed is for them to act more like men.
· This house believes that the political system would need to be radically overhauled in order for there to ever be equal numbers of male and female MPs.
· This house believes that the next female MP should not be like Margaret Thatcher.
Pre-Order /Buy The Iron Lady On DVD
The Iron Lady is out on Blu-ray and DVD on 30 April from Pathé Productions Ltd
Discover more from
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
About the Author
