International Women's Day

It's International Women's Day Hannah Fearn (Guardian journalist) reminds us.

It's International Women's Day Jane Dudman (Guardian journalist) reminds us.

It's International Women's Day Chi Onwurah MP reminds us, highlighting gender imbalance among nerds and techies (women have a right to be geeks also).

It's International Women's Day Seema Malhotra MP reminds us, giving us a list of truly inspirational women.

It's International Women's Day Calum Sherwood (Labour CND Youth Officer) reminds us, demonstrating that IWD-awareness permeates to every sub-classification of the Left.

It's er... International School Meals Day a slightly off-message Sharon Hodgson MP reminds us.

It's International Women's Day right-wing Labour MP Caroline Flint reminds us, bigging up her female parliamentary colleagues.

I suppose there is a sort-of serious point to all this, however silly these lefties might express themselves.

And I suppose it keeps the lefties happy (they have little else to do now they are out of power).

But what have Labour women ever achieved?

Margaret Thatcher did not need International Women's Day to make her look good.  Her sincerity and passion for her beliefs took her to the very summit of power despite the hostility of the "buggins turn" men who thought power was all about wheeling and dealing and compromising your ideals.  She stayed at the top, a woman effectively alone, for over eleven years - a record unmatched by any other Prime Minister in the post-war period (and while she was in power the United Kingdom had both a female head of state and a female head of government - no other nation can match this).

Margaret Thatcher was of course a Conservative.

For all their noise and bluster the achievements of Labour women are puny beside that of Conservative women.

The women of the Labour left might care to consider whether they would ever have got as far as they have without Margaret Thatcher first showing that women could lead and organise and inspire people.

I took this photograph when the Thatcher statue was in the London Guildhall.