A biography for Emily Thornberryhasn’t been written yet.
“This sounds ridiculous, but my political inspiration is not Marx or Engels or anything like that. It was my mum.”
“We must apply the same standards to countries such as Saudi Arabia, Israel and Egypt that we apply to Iran, Russia and Syria.”
“The principle behind the Equal Pay Act is that if an individual woman finds a man doing similar work and being paid more she can take her employer to a tribunal and get paid equally and compensated. Sounds simple enough. But in reality this law has been hamstrung by a series of stupid loopholes that have developed over the years.”
“Whatever people's backgrounds or values, a society where more and more people face a daily struggle to house, clothe and even feed themselves and their families cannot possibly be the answer.”
“Unesco can rightly be claimed as one of Britain's greatest contributions to that global architecture of peace, and for Penny Mordaunt to be willing to destroy that legacy by withdrawing Britain's membership is nothing but historical and cultural vandalism.”
“It's unfortunate that the U.K. and Europe don't have the kind of culture which esteems legal protections enforced by the courts in the same way as, for example, the U.S. does.”
“There was a time when a certain type of Tory could have been relied on to swing from the chandeliers in defence of the rights of freeborn Britons. I suppose a lot of those Tories would have been what you might call 'one-nation Tories.' That tradition has died in the Conservative party.”
“Our courts' decisions do not permeate the public consciousness - we have no equivalent of the Brown v Board of Education ruling which outlawed racial segregation, or of Roe v Wade, which enshrined a woman's right to choose not just into law but into the public imagination as well.”
“We should waive fees for those taking equal pay claims; they are our whistleblowers and should be encouraged.”
“Allowing young people to vote for the first time while they are still at school would allow them to engage with the political process, as well as the relevant issues, with the support of teachers to help them make informed choices.”
“AV does not bring you greater proportionality - and there is a tendency for parties to gang up on one of the major ones to run an 'anyone but' campaign.”
“We need a foreign policy which responds to challenges like forced marriage, and which speaks to the particular needs of women and girls at risk of being sold into slavery.”
“It has always been the case that people on out-of-work benefits have to apply for more or less any job they can reasonably be expected to take. But the operative word there is 'reasonable,' because a job that's appropriate for a single, able bodied 22-year-old man may very well not be appropriate for a single mum who can't afford childcare.”
“Patients who have suffered appalling medical negligence, abused children ignored by social services, mistreated residents of care homes - they have all been given a voice by the Human Rights Act.”
“People like to think about MPs in very crass terms: you're either an uber-loyalist babe, or you're a rebel. There isn't any grown-up room to be thoughtful. There isn't space in public debate for that.”
“So how helpful has 'Help to Work' actually been? Not very.”
“All the evidence shows that establishing the habit of voting as early as possible is a vital tool in making sure that it's maintained throughout people's lives.”
“I was 10 when the Equal Pay Act was passed. It was pretty inspiring stuff.”
“Taxpayers' and 'people on benefits' are not two separate and distinct groups of people.”
“When one party is really unpopular, like the Conservatives in 1997, AV can really skew the result disproportionately against them.”