Top aide claims women lost lives in pandemic as macho No10 focused on shooting and hunting

[IwantToRetire]

Helen MacNamara, who was Britain’s most senior female civil servant, said Boris Johnson let the country down by not tackling the "toxic" culture he presided over.

The Inquiry has been shown WhatsApp messages from Dominic Cummings to Boris Johnson in which he said he wanted Ms MacNamara "out of our hair" as he no longer wanted to dodge “stilettos from that c**t". As she appeared today, the former official said the messages were "horrible to read", but she was not surprised because of the culture in No10.

In an email to civil service colleagues in April 2020, Ms MacNamara raised concerns that the failure to include women in decision making had led to problems, including the lack of provision for domestic abuse victims during the first lockdown. "It is very difficult to draw any conclusion other than women have died as a result of this," she wrote. Ms MacNamara highlighted how most PPE was not designed for female bodies even though 77% of NHS are women.

In a written statement, Ms MacNamara said: “The exclusion of a female perspective led to significant negative consequences, including the lack of thought given to childcare in the context of school closures. There was a serious lack of thinking about domestic abuse and the vulnerable, about carers and informal networks of how people look after each other in families and communities. There was not enough thinking about the impact on single parents of some of the restrictions.”

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/top-aide-claims-women-lost-31337867

I can't say I'm surprised, but this is horrible to read. How anyone could vote for this bunch of heartless incompetents again is beyond me. I'm not keen on the current incarnation of the Labour Party but it's hard to see how the Tories could have done things worse. If I'd lost a loved one in the pandemic I'd be out for blood.

It made me cry to read her statement about the complete lack of thought given to the impact on women. She also pointed out that the Cabinet spent time discussing shooting and football and made special provision for those ‘essentials’.

I heard a quote from her on Sky News saying it would have been completely different under Teresa May.

I know its all so shocking. The reports of what was said about older people was just disgusting.

But without dismissing the issue of Covid itself, how is it possible that in any office, anywhere in the UK in 2021, men feel able to bahve like this.

It really illustrates that so called equality for women is just a veneer, and underneath that men are still acting out their male privilege and women are just not important and an irritant.

Absolutely. I don’t think Dominic Cummings could have made that point any clearer.

How anyone could vote for this bunch of heartless incompetents again is beyond me.

Probably because Labour wanted even more lockdown even longer.

I watched her giving evidence today, I too cried when she spoke about this. We all know it goes on but to see/hear it was absolutely shocking.

Probably because Labour wanted even more lockdown even longer.

You obviously didn’t listen to her evidence today. She specifically stated that she had to have meetings with Labour shadow ministers and they were all much more knowledgeable than the idiots who were in charge.

'It made me cry to read her statement about the complete lack of thought given to the impact on women'

She's clearly an experienced, competent, empathetic woman. Cummings called her a cunt in WhatsApp messages and threatened 'jokingly' to remove her from the building in handcuffs. That's what this lot think of women.

Unfortunately we have a little knot of people on this board who've latched onto criticising gender ideology as a handy way to bash Labour rather than acknowledging that the Tories have been up to their necks in supporting this. GC feminists aren't exactly spoiled for voting choice and it's been a long, hard slog to finally get the issues hauled out of the shadows and into public conversation.

Today's news is no surprise, we all know Johnson's cabal was like this. And we saw how little thought was given to childcare during the lockdowns!

Yeah, some of the countries with "left" governments were even worse.

And it's not like the opposition parties were trying to bring it up and improve things on this.

I don't think this has anything to do with the parties' political persuasions and everything to do with good old fashioned male privilege.

I dont see this as being about (boring) the Tories are unspeakable.

This is about how groups work and that when both men and women are part of those groups what the dynamics are.

Does anyone think that Labour groups, trade unions, etc., behave any better.

Please, just for once can we have a thread that doesn't just go Tories are bad, Labour is worse or vica versa.

This about work place practices.

Although I think many of us now know the Westminster is a total cess pit. It is as though once people, or primarily men, get into positions of power they lose any sense of having to behave in a decent way, and this usually means letting their not very well concealed disrespect for women become apparent, because they know their positions means they are protected from having to pretend they are equal.

Yeah someone will be along in a minute trotting out the "at least the Tories know what a woman is" line, completely failing to recognise that the Tories don't give a shit about women, as demonstrated by today's testimony, and by their actions in their last 13 years.

I found this quite shocking to read as I think I had just got used to the idea of lockdown being utterly shit for vulnerable people but it turns out there were people in government pointing out all these problems and they just got ignored. It's disgusting and I completely agree that this is not a Tory/Labour issue, I agree with Helen McNamara that Theresa May wouldn't have run it like that. Labour has it's fair share of misogynists but I would like to think they would have been more aware of the affects on the poor and vulnerable.

They honestly live in a different world.

Unsurprising. But it had some very serious problems; children being locked up with abusive step parent while there were no schools, nurseries and limited social workers and overstretched hospitals during lockdown.

It is an abusers dream to have their victims locked up with them 24/7. And lockdown probably meant many abusive men paired up with women in circumstances when they might not otherwise.

Being intelligent means having empathy and having some thought to the possible consequences of decisions made.

Totally agree @IwantToRetire as always it was clear that men were the default human the pandemic response was planned around. They didn’t think about childcare, support for older people, care homes, how school closures would impact women more etc because women are just invisible to men like this unless they want sex or some food. Women = support human. To be fair they also didn’t particularly consider working class men that much but they prioritised them over women

It's all very well to say don't see this as being about the Tories are unspeakable, but the truth is that in my experience of 35 years in business (across various industries and organisations) I have never experienced a culture as toxic and inept as this one, especially during Covid.

This is right out there as a culture where rule breaking was so endemic and brazen as almost to be required. Where a female colleague was referred to as a cunt who should be handcuffed, where a married man groped his mistress against the office door. Here the leading players back stabbed, took the piss out of service users publicly and are documented as saying the elderly should suck up the fatal outcome of the failures of the organisation.

This is a group of men led by a man raised in the Bullingdon club mould, who has been sacked from previous jobs for lying and was still promoted within this organisation. He publicly wrote about female colleagues as 'Totty' and advised male colleagues to “Just pat her on the bottom and send her on her way”

This is right out there as parlous in how groups work and that when both men and women are part of those groups what the dynamics are.

You ask if anywhere else is better. In my experience everywhere has been better, even back in the 80s and 90s when we were perhaps less aware. Back then there was a 'female as tethered goat' attitude in some areas, but even then that was being called out and stamped out. Here, in the Tory party, it was the accepted modern standard.

Elsewhere there are checks and balances, ACAS, Human Resources and less of a tight knit cabal of men at the top who were boys at school together, have hunted together, taken coke at billionaire arms dealers mansions together, married each other's sisters and now promote each other and cover each others fat, entitled asses.

'Elsewhere there are checks and balances, ACAS, Human Resources and less of a tight knit cabal of men at the top who were boys at school together, have hunted together, taken coke at billionaire arms dealers mansions together, married each other's sisters and now promote each other and cover each others fat, entitled asses.'

Very well said. It's absolutely disgusting behaviour from start to finish and there are no excuses to be made for it

It's hardly news that Johnson, Cummings etc were in no way fit for office, but it's still pretty sickening to hear their misogynistic language and absolute contempt for ordinary people laid out so clearly

It's absolutely disgusting behaviour from start to finish and there are no excuses to be made for it

I agree, and also that how they behaved and what they thought was important was influenced not just by sex, but by race and class.

But as I understand it for quite a few women working in the Westminster bubble, not just Downing Street it can be really toxic, and know of women who have had a really bad in in the Labour Party and some in the unions.

Although, based on what are now in the public domain, Cummings certainly seems to go out of his way to exaggeratedly emphasise his superiority, although in fact his use of language indicts he isn't that secure. How did he ever get to be in that job.

Wasn't he just a friend of Boris, not even a vetted civil servant.

In fact the behaviour seems much more in line with what some women have experienced in the armed forces.

Is this a public school thing?

If so they the sooner the better that fewer and fewer MPs and spads have that back ground.

I am not sure that this is a causitive rather than correlative thing.

You are right about wc men, but also some of those elderly people were men, and members of other groups impacted too.

It seemed like people advocating lockdowns almost everywhere just totally ignored how they were going to affect a significant number of people. In my country, they didn't even open schools for key workers or kids with special needs.

There were people who understood this, but they were sort of suppressed. It was hard to hear what they were saying, no one would let them be heard.

I don't doubt that there were people in the Labour party she could talk to who seemed to get this. But I don't remember the Labour party bringing this kind of problem out in the public sphere, either.

Let's just say that the sexism was "world beating". I don't think anyone who has encountered men en masse who went to public school would have been the least bit surprised.

Anyway, Johnson had a lot of time for some women. Just not any that represented any kind of challenge.

Cummings I think was married to one of the editorial board of the Spectator, which explains in part his access to the top tier of government. You have to remember how he was lauded in certain parts of the press for attacking the "Establishment".

It's fair to observe that even if sexism exists elsewhere, this was qualitatively different.

I live in Wales and the lack of concern for expectant/ new mothers was even more marked here. We weren't allowed a bubble for having a child under one for way longer than England, and when it was allowed, there was a weird gas-lighting attempt to say it had always been allowed. Children's clothes and books were being cordoned off in supermarkets because you weren't allowed to buy them in November 2020.

My mother had to break the law to come and support us with a 4 and a half pound newborn, at a point where that was entirely legal in England.

So any Labour person who wants to claim they were doing better can explain that please.

In a written statement, Ms MacNamara said: “The exclusion of a female perspective led to significant negative consequences, including the lack of thought given to childcare in the context of school closures. There was a serious lack of thinking about domestic abuse and the vulnerable, about carers and informal networks of how people look after each other in families and communities. There was not enough thinking about the impact on single parents of some of the restrictions.”

As some of us said at the time. God annoying to see it now give the abuse posters faced but at least it’s said.