Woman's Hour - 26/09/2022

Episode Date: September 26, 2022

Women's voices and women's lives - topical conversations to inform, challenge and inspire.

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BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Emma Barnett and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Let's do this thing called Monday together, shall we? On today's programme, as Italy prepares for its first female Prime Minister, what could Giorgia Maloney mean for Italian women and why has her formula seemingly won her the top job? And turning to the conservative woman running the UK, Liz Truss, after the pound tanked, hitting a record low as the global market reacted to the biggest tax cuts in this country in 50 years. How will Trussonomics, as it's being called, add up and crucially, affect you. But in the midst of these headlines and new political norms,

you might be listening to this in pain, or dealing with an illness that refuses to leave you alone, no matter what medicine you chuck at it. On Friday, the news broke of the author Dame Hilary Mantel's death at the age of 70 after suffering a stroke. Her literary legacy was huge, but a large part of why the author of the best-selling Wolf Hall trilogy even picked her career was to have a job that she could control living with in severe pain and fatigue caused by the chronic condition endometriosis. Some of her lesser-known writing, but arguably her most powerful, was about the female body and how to live in it in pain.

Sometimes the touted cures hurt her more than the disease they were meant to be helping. The line that always stays with me from her dispatches on the front lines of pain and ill health was when she said everything she had achieved was in the teeth of the disease she lived with. The teeth. We'll discuss more about what she was contending with, with two women very much in the painful know, one of whom very close to Hilary Mantel, indeed on this front. But I wanted to give you the chance this morning to share what you have been able to do or achieve while traversing ill health. How has your life been impacted and what have you been able to create

despite it? You can text me here 84844, that's the number you need. Text will be charged to your standard rate. On social media we're at BBC Woman's Hour or email me through the Woman's Hour website or send a WhatsApp message or a voice note. Some of you doing that already 03700 100 444 and I look forward to hearing some of those insights and stories. But to Giorgia Maloney, a name you're about to become more familiar with, she's likely to become Italy's first female prime minister. It's expected the president will officially declare the results sometime today. The leader of the political party Brothers of Italy has won with the percentage of

votes to be confirmed. This is going off exit polling and will now lead a far right coalition government, the most right wing government since the end of the Second World War in Italy. A political culture infamous for its machismo, her victory is historic. In the 76 years since the foundation of the Republic, women have previously only reached the rank of foreign minister and president of the Senate. A single working unwed mother raised by a single working class mother, her motto while on the campaign trail was God, family and country. But what will her leadership look like and what impact could she have on the lives of Italian women?

Let's talk to the freelance journalist based in Rome, Claudia Teresi. Good morning. Good morning. Thanks for having me. It will be a historic moment for the country to have its first female leader like this, the first female prime minister. How do you think it's played into the fact that she is a woman, that her success has happened? I think the answer to the question whether it is a win or not for women in Italy could not be yes or no. Because in Italy we lack women in top position in politics, for example. So if we think just about gender, it is certainly a good news.

Because a woman breaking the so-called glass ceiling is good, is something new. But if you think about representation as advancing an agenda for women, then we can't say that it is good news at all. Why not? Because I think we have to bring in what some commentators call the elephant in the room, which is that the first woman leading a government in Italy is a far-right leader.

So one that has nothing to do with women's movement or women's rights. So this is the first point to make. The second question was about her position as an independent woman. I think that she portrayed herself as an independent woman, but also she portrayed herself as a mother. And being a mother is something which really resonates in Italy,

a country where motherhood is still sort of mystic and really, really important. So this is what I think about her use of her own gender. In a famous speech she gave a couple of years ago, she branded herself as Georgia, a mother, an Italian, a Christian. So I think that this statement embodies what she thinks also of womanhood. But there will have been women who voted for her and there will have been those that she appealed to. Why do you think she's appealed to them?

I think we will have to wait for the data around gender of the people who vote for Fratelli d'Italia. She also embodies the woman who is not a victim, who, again, breaks the glass ceiling. And also if we think of Fratelli d'Italia as a populist movement, she embodies the outsider, which is an important thing for the far-right movement because of course she's a woman and women are excluded from politics. And also the unemployment rate of women in Italy, I think that it had an impact

because some of these poor women usually doesn't vote. And I think they voted for Meloni because probably they don't know the history of the party and they were attracted from the youth Meloni, she does, of their own gender. Yes, about 49% of women work in Italy compared to, say, here in the UK, 72.2%. In terms of the idea of how she will impact women's lives then, coming away from how she's used being a woman or not

or how she may have appealed to female voters or not, I accept that we don't have the data yet. But will she change women's lives? We have to say that Melanie takes a very traditional view of womanhood. As I said, woman, mother, Italian, Christian. So she relies on gender stereotypes. And there is this exaltation of motherhood as the only function of women is natural being mothers. But at the same time, she denies sexual and reproductive rights. She also defines herself as pro-family and collaborates with the anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ plus movement.

So what women associations, women movements, LGBT movements fear is that she could be indeed a threat. So I think we have to look more at their politics rather than at her gender. So, I mean, of course, thinking about what's gone on in America with the revoking, the overturning of Roe v. Wade and how individual states are now legislating around abortion, is she expected to change the law? No, she will not change the law. She already said that. But we have to say that in Italy we have a law from the 70s which allow women to have an abortion in certain cases. But it is a law which is very weak because it was approved after a compromise. So the Howard Law already has inside some threats. For example, doctors can object and say they don't perform abortion and we have a rate of this doctor which is very, very high. Or the law allows governments and local administration to give funds to anti-abortion associations or groups

and let them enter inside the national health system. And this is a threat because this already happened in the region where Fratelli d'Italia or the far right is at the government. For example, there was the case, and I think it's also hit the news abroad, of the region Marche, where the local administrator from Fratelli d'Italia made a law allowing and funding anti-abortion association and let them enter the national system, the counselling services for women. So abortion in Italy is allowed, but it is already difficult.

And what Meloni could do is not abolish the law, but make abortion even more difficult for Italian women. She also has on social media talked about violence against women. But there have been concerns about the way that she used that. Some saying she weaponized that for her party's bigger view on immigration and migration. Yeah, I think you're referring to what happened a couple of weeks ago in August, I think, where she posted the video of the rape of a Ukrainian woman by analam seeker. Yeah, she was strongly criticized for having used rape for electoral propaganda and showing no respect at all for the Viking.

But this is a feature, something that Far-right does really, really often, talking about gender-based violence, to use it as a tool to pursue anti-immigration and security policies. And this is really important because in Italy we have a structural problem regarding violence against women. We had 125 femicides between August 2021 and the 31st of July 2022, meaning that more than one woman killed every three days. And despite the majority of the perpetrators are Italian, what the far right says is that they always brought up gender violence

when it was some non-Italian committee. But the majority of those that you just quoted are Italian, is your point? Yeah, absolutely. And when she is announced, as we expect, later today as the first female prime minister, Giorgia Maloney, that's who we're talking about if you're just joining us, will there be a feeling across men and women, will there be a feeling, as there can be with new leaders, of hope in Italy, of celebration? What do you think there will be in terms of the response?

Well, if you look at the Italian television, if you look at the Italian media, it's like they they realized uh just today that the we will have we will likely have a far-right government the first one uh after fascism the the fall of fascism in italy one thing that that i noted is that um italian media and italian television Italian outlets, didn't use the word far-right or extreme right or post-fascist party to describe Fratelli d'Italia. They only used it last night when they were commenting foreign outlets' headlines around the victory of Fratelli d'Italia.

So there was a sort of normalisation of far-right and I think that there will be in the future, in the following months. The risk here is that there will be a further normalisation of what it is a post-fascist party. I mean, because again, I know voter turnout again is an issue in Italy like it is here in the UK, but your take on this at the moment is

there may be a delay between the reality of what's happened and how the vote has just gone and how we expect it to go in terms of Georgia Maloney being named the first female prime minister. Thank you very much, Claudia Teresi there. Thank you for having me. A journalist based in Rome, a freelance journalist there. And of course, it is a real moment for Italy with the first far-right coalition government,

the most right-wing government since the end of the Second World War. Those members of that party, including Georgia Maloney, have talked about that that's not the same as it has been presented and they've moved away from that, but all're going to talk now about Dame Hilary Mantel, who died last Thursday at the age of 70. Regarded as one of the greatest English-language novelists of this century, Dame Hilary Mantel is perhaps less well-known for her brilliant writing on chronic illness. We learned from the news right at the end of the week last Friday. In 2003, she wrote about her experience with endometriosis

in an acclaimed memoir, Giving Up the Ghost. She also wrote a remarkable hospital diary, Ink in the Blood, after falling gravely ill after just winning the Man Booker Prize, again for Bring Up the Bodies, the sequel to Wolf Hall, the Tudor trilogy that sent her career stratospheric. Throughout her life, this severe form of endometriosis, a condition where tissue similar to the lining of the womb grows in other places such as the ovaries and fallopian tubes, is part and a big part of her day-to-day and was a big part of her day-to-day existence. It took many years to diagnose. Aged 27, Hillary's disease was eventually named. But it was named, she wrote, on the operating table. And to make me viable, I had to lose part of my bladder, my bowel,

my womb and my ovaries. I woke up to a strange future, childlessness, premature menopause and a marriage already tottering that would soon fall apart. She later became a patron and supporter of the endometriosis she trusts. Well here is Dame Hilary in March 2020 talking to me about the effect that endometriosis had had on her life. You have to find a way of living with it and living around it. And I have been ill most of my life, I would say, certainly since I was 19. And now I'm a burnt out case of this particular condition, but the cures have done their own damage. And I have been very fortunate because I could take to an occupation that is writing where you're your own boss and you set your own hours. And OK, there are times when I go out and I become a public person.

But most of the time, I can work around whatever it is that's besieging me that day. I made that choice. There were other lives I would have liked to live. I would have liked to travel more. Maybe I would have liked a more public role. But you do what you can do. And what is important with that condition is to believe that you can make a life. I mean, I don't have a family. I didn't have the chance of having children. But I've tried to make my life as full as possible.

Just for people who don't know, that's because the procedure removed that possibility. Yes, yes. I mean, I was 27 when my fertility was confiscated, as it were, as a way of combating the disease. So it was a case of waking up with no choice. And again, we all hate being up against something that's impossible, that there's an obstacle that you simply can't negotiate your way around. So you have to dig underneath it in a way,

come out on the other side into another world, not one you expected, but there it is. Make the best of it. Dame Hilary Mantel, very wise words indeed. And as someone who also has endometriosis and adenomyosis, I read her words when I was finally diagnosed after 20 years at the age of 31. And a message here talking about what you can do, how you've tried to traverse and live around, as Dame Hilary Mantel was saying there. Good morning. I contracted glandular fever at the age of 13.

That led to ME, autoimmune disease in my early 20s and an entire adult life of living with chronic fatigue. Every day is a huge struggle, but I had a good career as a professional singer, university singing lecturer, even touring as Russell Watson's special guest and performing at the London Palladium. I had a successful business on Etsy.

I'm also an interfaith minister offering spiritual care, leading funerals and offering end of life support. There's such shame and stigma living with chronic invisible illness. But I live with purpose and I have to organise my life around daily rest and sleep periods. The daily fatigue is physical and cognitive and there's never a day off. What can I do but decide not to be defined by it to try and keep living with hope and an open heart? That's what Reverend Cecilia, who's written in, says.

Thank you for that. Emma, I've suffered with endometriosis since a young teen. I've powered through each painful episode to become a head gardener of an estate in Oxford in a very masculine workforce. Each episode of searing pain makes me more determined to climb up the ladder and beat the grasp of extreme pain. It will not define my passions. And horticulture teaches you about seasons.

This disease definitely has seasons. Yes, it does. Within our body. Thank you for highlighting the winds despite the symptoms. And that's from Rachel, who's listening in Oxford. But I really wanted to also make sure that I read a message here from someone who's just got in touch on Twitter saying, I'm not achieving much with endometriosis or adenomyosis, not overcoming, just surviving. And more messages along those lines and the others as well about what people are able to do, not just with endometriosis, living with all sorts of conditions and trying to live.

Sarah Perry is joining me now, author of Essex Serpent, who's had her own experience of chronic illness and a connection and relationship with Hilary Mantel, and Eleanor Tom, author of Private Parts, How to Live With, or How to Really Live With Endometriosis. Again, someone who got to know Hilary Mantel well, didn't you, Eleanor? This relationship was born of a kinship through your illness. Yeah, we met when I was 30 and I was very, very sick

and I wrote to her and just said, I don't know what to do now. I've been trying for it not to define me and it now is doing and I don't know what to do. And she said, well for it not to define me, and it now is doing, and I don't know what to do. And she said, well, why don't you come and have a cup of tea? And so we met, and I realised I'd never talked to anybody about it who had it, and there was this kinship straight away. We just knew each other in a way that I'd never felt with anybody else. And she was so calm, and after such a lot of crises uh with illness and with the drama of surgeries and hormone treatments and everything the idea that somebody

was calm about this disease was really reassuring um and we became good pals after that and she sort of made it feel like everything was possible even when it wasn't possible and I thank her enormously for that and I think that the gift that she gave in terms of giving it language was something that I hadn't seen before indeed the book Giving Up the Ghost talks about it was such visceral language that I just didn't I'd never never known anybody else share their story of how it felt and I suddenly was like oh that's how I feel and I read it in a bookshop and I kind of fell against the bookcase. And I was 26 then, so it was years before I would meet her. And she's an extraordinary woman.

You know, no one around her even knew what it was for so long. And then to be in that pain and find the strength to give it language almost makes it even more remarkable. I can only imagine how you were feeling at the end of last week as someone who then developed a real bond with her after that first meeting. of years and a real gift to have interviewed her for the last time not not because she wasn't not because of of her death but because she didn't want to talk about it again in an interview setting because it is so draining to talk about it um she joked that at the end of the interview that she was passing on the baton uh which i said i was very honored but neither was a run relay from

in any of our times recently um and she yeah it's very, very hard to write about pain at that level. It takes a lot out of you. It takes something out of your system, I think, to share that much personal stuff. And she was a pioneer to share it that early on. No one talked about endometriosis in 2003, never mind wrote about it in a memoir um no the memoir i was going to say i mean still people can't pronounce that spell it or anything

but which we both had experiences of very recently i think with you especially in the medical system and i know you've also been suffering with with long covid which you won't mind me saying as well um many of our listeners have been in touch about that especially as it's disproportionately affecting women men are affected but we know more women. We certainly seem to know at the moment more women are affected. But, you know, it was kind of like a secret book. If you knew about it, you knew about it. It wasn't secret. People were reading it en masse.

But what she's known for is something quite different, isn't it, Sarah? Let me bring you in as an author, Sarah Perry. Good morning to you. Good morning. Thank you for joining us. I was reading what you wrote in light of the news of Dame Hilary Mantel's death this weekend, and you talked about yourself becoming ill with a different condition related to your immunity and then your immune system and your thyroid. And you said, I became ill, endured tormenting pain. Her writing on bodily suffering arrived for

me like dispatches from a traveller who had entered a bad land long before me and had left a map and a light, which is a very powerful way of putting it. Yeah, I read Giving Up the Ghost long before I'd ever become ill and responded to it in such a visceral way, I locked myself in the office toilets to cry. As Eleanor so powerfully points out, it's viscerally affecting in its ability to convey the complete degradation and shock of finding that your body could betray you in this appalling way.

I already knew that I couldn't conceive, but didn't know why. And her writing about having her fertility confiscated, as she said, it's so powerful. And she writes about feeling that she's followed around everywhere by the ghosts of the footsteps of the children that she never had. And it really stayed with me. And I wrote her a love letter running to about four A4 sides, which she replied to.

So we had, I know it's the only love letter I've ever written. And so when I became ill, yes, she did. Yeah, about a year later. And this was after Wolf Hall had been published. And she said, I'm very sorry it's so late. I've been busy. I know you've just won the Booker Prize. And she was extraordinarily kind and then when I became ill I felt very much like the master's apprentice and that she had left

a pattern um for how it was possible to convey to your readers and convey to the people that you love how tormenting the pain is how it strips you back to what she described as the authentic self. It removes your manners. It removes your character. It removes your sense of humour. It strips you back to something atavistic and essential, not an authentic self that you really want to meet. And I feel that the writing on sickness and pain that I've done, people have been generous enough to say has been a great consolation to them in their sickness. And that's only because she showed us how to do it. And also you've had the experience, which she spoke about as well when I had the chance and the privilege of interviewing her, about some of the cures having effects on you that are also very difficult. And she talked about how her body changed, how her face changed and how she had to deal with that.

Because not only was she not able to do with her body what she wanted, but she didn't look how she wanted. And we're not even talking about the, you know, the sort of basic vanities. She was transformed, wasn't she, Sarah? Absolutely. And she wrote very lucidly about the fact that she'd been this sort of elfin, slender little elfin blonde with sort of long, fair hair. And a lifetime of pain and a lifetime of medication does not leave you looking the way you did. And it's sort of tricky for anybody who identifies as any way intellectual and a feminist to be permitted to vocalise that but we are received as our appearance at first you know face literally face value and I entered

illness as a sort of tall stout glossy animal you know with sort of long shining hair and and you know looked really well and within years, spinal surgery and steroids and illness and pain had made me look completely different. And although I'm now very strong and a weightlifter and no longer in any pain, I'll never look the same as I did. I'm scarred. I have eyes that bulge and are damaged from thyroid disease. I will have to be on medication for the rest of my life. And you realise that there are two selves. There's the one that negotiated the world as a well person and was seen as a well person.

And there is the sick woman that people see and receive. And it's quite humbling to realise you can't even control how you're viewed. Yes, and I think what you can control, though, if you can, and she talks and talked about this, was what you do and how you respond and what you can do with your life. And I know, Eleanor, you used to work as a comedian,

literally as a stand-up, and standing up can be quite hard in your life with what you have been traversing. Yeah, and I think it's really interesting what Sarah just said about the physical, the way in which you look so very different from the cures. And if they're not cures as well, I think it's quite interesting that you go, well, I went through all of this and I still look different and I'm still not better.

Because I wouldn't mind blowing up if it meant that I could get back up on stage again, but unfortunately I'm blown up and still sitting down um I think it's it's that ability to sort of feels a bit like a game of netball you sort of have to keep pivoting around what you can and can't do um you dip from one foot to the other and you see whether or not you can do that for a little bit and if that won't work you go to another one but it's exhausting that alone is exhausting um but what she did was give me when I first met her and talked to her and I think it was the first conversation I'd ever had with anyone about endometriosis I think I've been fiercely private about it even with my family so it was quite a kind of magic moment for me but she gave me permission to feel sad about the fact that it changed how I looked at 30 and permission

to say you can sort of change your path a little bit if you want but also you can grieve for the fact that this path isn't working at the moment and you don't have to say goodbye to it but just recognize this is going on at the moment and you just have to be here um which is hard but easier when someone actually understands that what they're asking of you It's easier when someone who goes through it says that to you than a doctor or anyone. And also, you know, owning that pain and being with it for the rest of your life.

I mean, she talked very openly about, as was just mentioned, you know, the ghosts of the footsteps of the children. She wasn't able to have her fertility being confiscated. And that is a big part of the condition you she wasn't able to have her fertility being confiscated. And that is a big part of the condition you and I both have that she lived alongside for the whole of her life. And on a very personal note, if I would be permitted to share, I felt even stranger this weekend thinking about her and the voice that she had given to the illness that was so poorly understood and is still poorly understood by doctors. you know I've talked about this publicly I've gone through fertility treatment

and I just felt that it was at a point where I could share again that after years of trying and a lot of loss along the way that I am pregnant and it just felt very like I had been born at a slightly different time to her and not that it's going to be okay for lots of women with conditions that affect fertility, especially endometriosis, which I know about and I know you know about. But it felt very odd sort of knowing that perhaps things were slightly different

because of just when I was born and her news of her death this weekend, Eleanor. Yeah, well, congratulations. That's very exciting. That's very kind. But it was sobering as well. I suppose that's what I'm trying to say. I think she, it was a time when no one knew what it was. And I think when she had the surgery, they didn't really know what they were dealing with. And I think she didn't know what she was dealing with and it was it was all pretty horrendous and I hope that things like her talking about it in a book in 2003 means that

people that would never have known about it know about it and go oh I wonder if that's and then it goes on I think awareness has got enormously better since um since they they did the surgery for her and the surgery since, I think the problem is that the treatments haven't changed and we are still being given huge quantities of hormones, massive, massive hormones that change our bodies forever, even if you're only on them for six months. And the surgery lists are very long

and it's not really improved in terms of of outcomes apart from the fact that doctors don't necessarily just do a hysterectomy straight away and that's you know having having had some of the same surgery having had a laparoscopy that's that's a shift I mean even though it's not better it is it is a shift I suppose in itself and and and she managed still as well I mean to to Sarah's point and some of the points coming in, yes, you get stripped back by illness, but she also managed to have a huge warmth and a huge sense of

humour with it as well, didn't she? I don't know. You know, I knew that. Yeah, really funny and so kind, like ever so kind. When I first met her I sent her an email the night before saying, oh goodness, I'm gluten free. I don't know, shall I bring my own biscuits? I was like panicking at half past nine at night going, I don't want to be the person that makes a fuss about this.

And she's just like, oh, that's fine. I'll see you tomorrow. And I got there and there was a plate of two kinds of gluten free biscuits. Even my closest friends don't do that as much as they love me. And she said, I said, are you having some as well? She said, oh, no, I tried glutenfree for a bit. Everything tastes like cardboard. They're for you. I agree with her on that. I've tried that.

There wasn't enough gain to lose out on some of the biscuits. I know that there will be excellent gluten-free biscuits before there are many, many messages. There are now. That's improved. See, with time, some things do get a bit better. Eleanor, Tom, I hope you're doing okay today. Thank you very much for being with us

and sharing some of your memories of Hillary, better. Eleanor Tom, I hope you're doing okay today. Thank you very much for being with us and sharing some of your memories of Hilary, but also some of your own, you know, trials and tribulations that continue, I'm sad to say. Sarah Perry, the same to you. Thank you for those memories and for sending a four page letter, the only love letter you've ever sent, but at least Hilary Mantel, Dame Hilary Mantel replied. Many messages coming in about how you've lived around and within illness. And a message here, really interesting on chronic illness and hearing Dame Hilary Mantel talk about it affecting her life choices. I suffer from chronic migraines. It was part of my decision not to go back to work after having my first son.

I felt so guilty when I let people down last minute when I was employed full time in publishing. If I came down with a migraine, now I plan my own time and give in to the migraine, as she puts it in inverted commas, when needed. No name on that. But many also saying they don't have the choice in any way to work around such things. And that is a reality of needing to have a job, make money and see how you can get through, which is very apt for our next discussion because the pound fell to a record low against the dollar as markets reacted to the UK's biggest tax cuts in 50 years.

Well, just before I came on, it slightly recovered. The economic plan described by some as a gamble for growth was unveiled by the new chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, on Friday. It includes cuts to income tax and stamp duty. The top rate of income tax will reduce to 40%. The planned rise in national insurance has been reversed and corporation tax increases will not now happen. The hope is that the Chancellor describes as a much more front-loaded approach to growth will kick-start the economy. He's also said you don't deal with people's rising cost of living by taking more of their money in tax. Well, right now, the Labour Party conference is underway

in Liverpool. Sir Keir Starmer has said that if he was in power, he would keep the top rate of income tax at 45%. Of course, it's also worth remembering that under the last Labour government, the top rate of tax was 40%. It seems that public sector pay will face a two year freeze as plans for a spending review have been dropped. These are all developments we know are of concern to all of you, but of course, have an impact on women. And when we talk about public sector, it's worth remembering that 65% of public sector employees are women. Today, I want to introduce you to what we're calling our Cost of Living panel. Maybe the name of that will also evolve. But some people I hope will

be joining me over the coming weeks and months to give their opinions and advice and to perhaps answer your questions. So do get in touch with us and any queries you have. And we can come to them again if we don't get to them today. But let me tell you who I'm talking about. Claire Barrett, the Consumer Editor at the Financial Times and a presenter on the Money Clinic podcast. Rupam Karol, a business owner who runs Beeston Nursery in Nottingham, sector we know facing huge challenges. Alison Dunn, chief executive of Citizens Advice Gateshead. She's also a service director of local government, most recently launching the Warm Spaces Project which will see local buildings open for people to keep warm this

winter, something we have discussed as well quite recently on the programme. Good morning to all of you and thank you for your time. Claire, if I can start with you. Your takeaway then, now you've had a couple of days to take in what's being described as a mini budget. Hopeful, cautious, where are you? Well, I think myself, like like many other listeners are very worried about what the impact of this could be we saw how markets reacted on friday and again after the chancellor doubled down on his tax cutting intentions with comments over the weekend how markets and the pound have reacted this morning i mean just to put it into context with people who maybe are struggling to

keep up, the pound falling to this record low against the dollar, but also the cost of government borrowing rising when people talk about the gilt markets, that's what they mean. This is a worry, because if the Chancellor and the Prime Minister are borrowing tens of billions of pounds to fund these tax cuts, which will, let's not pretend, benefit mostly the very richest in society, but also to fund the energy help package, which will help people and businesses. If they're borrowing that money and the cost of borrowing is going up, then there is a real risk that inflation, one of the things that they've been trying to get under control, the cost of living, could actually get worse. The FT is reporting this morning that markets are now expecting an emergency interest rate rise

from the Bank of England in the wake of what's happened, which could happen as soon as next week. And some economists are expecting that interest rates could hit 6% next year, by the middle of next year. Now, if that were to happen, that would be catastrophic for household budgets. Well, I was about to say, though, just to say a couple of things. There's some regret that it's being reported by the political journalists of Liz Truss's team that the top rate of tax cut announcement

was included on Friday, because it only accounts, I'll say that in a way, you know, in sort of parentheses, for two billion of the 45 billion of cuts and could make it look, as you were talking about, the government being more concerned about the wealthy than the average earner. I also talked about labour and the history of that particular cut. But then with what you've just said, a lot of those people who may then receive a bit more back will then be hit by interest rates. So the gain isn't necessarily

going to be felt by those who it's concerned that the Conservatives are only concerned by, if that makes sense. Yes, people are talking about the swings and roundabouts, the unintended consequences of what the Conservatives are trying to do. I mean, for a long time, they have been the party who talks about cutting taxes. And certainly if we were sitting on a period of economic success and wanted to hand back money in the form of tax cuts, that would be very different. But when you're borrowing to fund it at a time when there is a cost of living crisis, let us not forget the political optics of it do look slightly strange.

What about the argument, if I can just break in here and then I want to come to our others, that what we were doing also wasn't working? Yes, of course, there is the argument that the Chancellor made that it would be a bigger gamble to have stayed on the economic course that we were on. And certainly cutting tax for businesses, as I'm sure we're going to hear from Rupert in a moment, and protecting the people and businesses from these huge energy rises that are coming. That is an action that people have been waiting for a long time for the government to really move the lever on. And the gamble, unfortunately, is that it's good intentions to do that, having gone too far, perhaps, with the tax cutting measures, borrowing too much money, upsetting the markets with

an unplanned announcement that nobody was expecting could make it worse for everyone. And certainly, if you're somebody who has a mortgage, the prospects of higher rents, but also landlords putting up rents for tenants and just higher inflation in general, pushing up the cost of food, the cost of everyday essentials in the short term, that's going to be a bigger worry for everyone, for families, for businesses alike. And yet let's go to a business, Rupert Carroll, a business owner, Beeston Nursery owner in Nottingham. Good morning. Good morning, Emma. With some time now to have taken this in yourself and of course, that specific announcement last week about the cap on energy bills for businesses.

Are you now in a better place? I am still petrified, I would say. There has been a little bit of help with energy, but the prices are still sky high, not just with energy, with food, with staffing, with all my supplies. And nurseries have been in crisis for a number of years. So we're coming off the back of some lean years, which makes it even more scary for the future. But I suppose with the help to business, which had been a focus and is going to apparently continue to be a focus, that it doesn't sound like it seems to have, you know, sort of calmed any of those concerns, or would you say it has? For me personally, and for my nursery, I don't

think it has. Why not? So I'm still facing the prospect of, I will still have higher fuel bills, if not now in six months time. But definitely I can't cut back on heating when we are providing an environment that's comfortable and warm for babies. So, you know, we need to do that over the summer. We've spent a lot on electricity as well for air conditioning for the same reason because of the heat wave food prices have rocketed and we like to provide good quality high quality food for our children in our care and that's getting really hard to do we're having to be very imaginative now about where we source that and yet parents listening if they use a nursery I'm not talking specifically about yours but you can tell me about where you are we'll say it's expensive to send their children to nursery

oh it's so expensive and this is the heartbreaking thing for me because actually it's a really expensive service to provide if you provide high quality child care you need to spend a lot of money we need staff and we need a lot um it's i work with many other nurseries as well and many of them um their staff bill is up to 90 percent of their expenses so because we have to have so many staff and they have to be well trained and qualified that makes um the wage increases absolutely terrifying but then also um we haven't had the government support that we really really could have done with and i think this is the disappointing thing we've been shouting about this for years and we're still in the same place we were. I had a 6pm hour rise in the funded dollars from the government this year, which is just nothing. It's so paltry.

I mean, the full budget has yet to come. There has been hope that perhaps those cries from the sector that you're talking about will be heard. It's a subject that we will continue to return to and have covered over the past few years in particular in this light but the government released this statement to us saying we've spent more than four billion pounds in each of the past five years to support families with the cost of child care the number of child care places available remains stable as it has since 2015 and thousands of parents benefit from this support improving parents access to affordable, flexible childcare is a government priority.

We're investing millions in better training for staff working with preschool children and have set out plans to help providers run their businesses more flexibly as well as providing further support for non-domestic energy users, which we've just talked about including early years, providers with their energy costs. I mean, the right noises are being made there, but the reality you're saying is different. I think one of the problems is that we've had a lot of churn politically, and that makes it difficult for education ministers to bed in and really understand the issues. And there seems to be a fallback to basic maths when analysts who are not understanding the childcare sector are looking at the childcare, they start to think

about ratios and, well, let's have more children per member of staff. Those are things that would work if you had a mathematical model where all the children were the same age and had the same birthdays and the quality of the care that we gave to those children wouldn't be affected what parents want is they want secure affordable child care especially women it disproportionately affects women they want to feel reassured that they don't have to worry about their children of course i mean we don't have the space to do all of this justice at the moment but your point is you want no no but we'll talk more again but the point is you you're basically saying you want more money from the government absolutely yes i do because a lot of people are not able to

work because they can't afford decent childcare. And that's a really fundamental problem. Where that will come from and how it will be funded, if it will be funded, will be a focus that you'll be looking out for. Alison Dunn, the Chief Executive of Citizens Advice in Gateshead. Now you've taken in what we've initially heard. This is a mini budget. Where are you at with this? Really disappointed, Emma, really disappointed. Any tax benefits for low and moderate earners, any tax benefits that they might have gained will be eaten up by mortgage increases,

by soaring energy bills, high levels of inflation. But actually, for people who are living in the northeast of England, 38% of children are already living in poverty. We have lots of benefit claimants. And actually, I really would have liked to have seen the government upgrade the benefit claims in the mini budget instead of making changes to that system that simply make it harder for people to claim. In what way? So we've had all sorts of changes to the conditionality arrangements. So for example, if you are working nine hours at the moment, you wouldn't necessarily have to go in for regular meetings. They're going to increase that to 12 hours. There's going to be pressure on people to increase the number of hours that they're working. Older people are going to have to meet more regularly with their work coaches for more intensive changes.

So there's lots of things that are going to make it harder for people to claim benefits, but there's been no upgrade in the level of benefits that people are receiving. In some of the poorest areas in Gateshead, we have 60% of children living in poverty. Now, they're not all benefit claimants. Universal credit is an in-work benefit. There's a lot of working people who have children who are also living in poverty. So I think we've missed a trick. I'm not saying that we shouldn't have made the changes to the tax system, but we also should have made some uplift in the standard rate of universal credit. So that would have been the change you were listening out for. I mean, of course, there will be a full budget. It isn't yet. This is the kind

of macroeconomic picture or at least a sign of where we're going. But there are people like you making decisions and being part of teams that are doing things that are innovative, I suppose, like warm spaces around the support in the community. And I wonder when you are making those announcements, if that's some way of going towards the way that people can feel not more reassured about this, but like way of going to towards the way that people can feel

not not more reassured about this but like there is going to be care there so we've done a huge amount in gateshead to try and alleviate the symptoms of poverty but ultimately poverty can only be resolved by a change in policy from the centre so warm spaces is a great initiative you know in gateshead we've launched a task force around cost of living, which I'm leading for the borough. We have a fuel poverty action plan. The council itself has passed a cost of living motion comparable to the climate change emergency. Such do they, you know, rate the seriousness of this. They're treating it in the same way that we treat the pandemic response. But it is about money. And people in Gateshead, in the northeast of England, were really, really struggling.

The gap between the rich and the poor is getting wider. Poverty in the northeast of England is getting greater. And, you know, I really have to question whether there is a continued commitment to the levelling up agenda for the northeast of England, because it doesn't feel like that from where we're sitting. That is a phrase that we've told, certainly, that's not necessarily part of this new prime minister's lexicon, but perhaps will be shown in a different way. We will have to see. It's a good

primer, a good intro to get your reactions to this. I look forward to talking to all of you again about this. Thank you for your time today. Thank you. Now, my next guest in the early 90s was one of the hosts of the Cult Channel 4 programme, The Wirt. 18-year-old Amanda Ducadene, unlike her co-host Terry Christian, was the object of tabloid attention, dubbed a wild child and photographed endlessly. Her memoir in 2017 was called It's Messy on Boys, Boobs and Badass Women. And she wrote frankly about being in the UK care system teenage motherhood and rape in the same year Amanda launched a podcast and tv show the conversation in which

she talks to influential women this month she's launched an offshoot podcast called all about the men where she talks to men about feminist issues and their perspectives about things like masculinity Amanda has said in the past she ran away from the UK to the US, aged 20. And when we spoke, I started by asking her why. I mean, in hindsight, it's a really sad thing that I felt like I had to do that. I mean, you would have to consider that someone who was, you know, by all intents purposes, doing very well in my career. I had a new baby. I was married. I had, you know, I had a good life going in the UK. And the reason why I felt like I had to leave

was not because I wanted to, but ultimately because being a young person and being a household name at that time with the focus of tabloid media and just the amount of attention that was on me was just too overwhelming for me. And I really wanted to, you know, just have a kind of normal life and know what that was like. And I think I really felt like I didn't have a choice. It's sad that I felt like I had to leave, but I did feel like I had to leave. Which is something we do talk about on Women's Art a great deal is how we're doing for the most vulnerable in our society here in the UK. And you have spoken about the fact that you were put into care in the earlier part of your life. And I was looking at the figures. There are around 80,000 children in care in the UK today.

And when you were in care, there were around 60,000. And of course, some of the same concerns will be there. There will be other concerns there now. And I just wonder, with some of these conversations you have been having with a huge variety of people, if there was something you could say to your younger self now, what would you say or to somebody listening who might be in that situation? Yeah, I mean, being in care was one of the scariest things for me. It was also an incredible experience because at the time I

didn't realize it. But it really taught me on a very, very deep level that even though we were all in there for different circumstances, some of them more similar than others, but mostly different, different things. There was a kind of a common, there was a commonality and it taught me that I can find something in common with practically anybody. If I'm dealing with the emotional aspect of my life and their life, if I remove the zip code and my skin color and my gender and all of that, and I can just connect with them on a human to human level, we're more similar than we are different. And so that was a really incredible thing to learn at such a young age, at age 15, to really get that

was amazing. And I would not have gotten that in the same way had I not have been in a children's home. What I would say to anybody who is listening to this is do not think that your experience being in a children's home means that you're not going to have the life that you want. It could actually be the thing that helps you create the life that you want. I do not have a traditional career trajectory. I left school at 16. I was in a children's home at 15. I, you know, have a few O levels. But I have created a life for myself. That is one that I am really happy in, that I consider myself to be a successful woman. And all of the things that I thought were kind of the end of me and that had derailed me were actually the things that really helped define and shape me in extremely

powerful and positive ways. But I suppose it's formed the basis and for you to have thought about that time of how you've tried to do some of your work since and interestingly to me you went on to be a photographer you turned the lens the other way and try to I understand reframe what you were seeing and maybe think about that differently because back when we're talking about in the 90s you know that it wasn't online it was all in the papers you had no ability to reply in the way that lots of people do today with social media, even if it makes it worse, even if you get more caught up in it in a whole other way. And then there's, you know, cancel culture as well. I'm not saying it's better, but you had no way of replying.

That's right. And I think, look, you're right. I became a photographer because at some point around age 22, 23, I just didn't want to be forward facing. I didn't want to be a public person. I had been, to be a public person. I had been I'd grown up in the public since I was 15 years old and I had no sense of who I was. And I wanted but I realized I wanted to tell stories about women and I wanted to represent women in a very authentic, honest way. And so the best way for me to do that was actually to go behind the camera at that time and to take photographs myself. And it was so freeing for me and I loved it. And that is what kind of got me going with, with photographing, um, you know, other people as well. And that's how I kind of began my career and absolutely from having no ownership over and having no way to reply to so many of the things that I wanted to reply to.

Certainly, you know, becoming a photographer and also executive producing and directing and hosting my own interview series in the US, the conversation was a great way for me to kind of take control of my own life and my own narrative. And to make sure that I was making not only was I taking photos of women that I felt more authentically represented them, but also that I made a TV series that where I really did highlight women's stories and I could decide who was on there and what the narratives were and who we were talking to and make sure that not only was I interviewing people who had big audiences, you know, Lady Gaga, Alicia Keys, Gwyneth Paltrow, people like that, and talking about subject matter that I felt was really necessary to be spoken about.

But I could also sandwich in there people who are completely unknown that no one ever heard of, like a writer that I loved called Leslie Bennett, that wrote a book called The Feminine Mistake, about how women were, you know, leaving the workforce to have kids and then trying to go back into the workforce. And they couldn't get hired for the job that they'd had the career they'd had their whole lives before they left to have kids. So I would sandwich in people that I felt were really needed, whose voices were necessary and valuable, but who just didn't have platforms. You have now a new arm of the podcast, which is involving men.

And it's called About the Men, this part of this. Why did you want to do that? So I wanted to launch a series that where I was interviewing men because I'd been having conversations with men over the last few years privately I'd also been talking to my son and really feeling concerned about the culture and the world that he was growing up with and I felt that there was really important conversations that needed to be had with men that I needed to do my best to kind of get out in the world. And I felt like it was time.

You know, I really am interested in building bridges. And it's been really fascinating actually speaking to these guys, starting with Matthew McConaughey, what he shared about how he learned about consent and how he talked to his kids about consent and his experience with sexual assault. These are things that you don't normally hear men talking about. And in the States, the response has been incredible. So much discussion around the topics that we talked about because you just don't hear men talking about these things. But we need to hear men talking about these things. It's important that we hear men talking about these things. And so I'm hopeful that this series will help build a bridge. That's what I'm trying to do. Amanda Ducadene there. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Thank you so much for

your time. Join us again for the next one. I'm Sarah Trelevan, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in.

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