Woman's Hour - Brexit: Deadlock and Compromise, Jenny Downham, Inducing Late Babies

Episode Date: October 29, 2019

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has so far failed to get Parliament’s backing for his Withdrawal Agreement Bill and he won’t meet the October 31st deadline to leave the EU. MPs have also, so far, declined to back plans for the General Election that he wants. The leaders of two parties, Nicola Sturgeon of the SNP and Jo Swinson of the Lib Dems, presented a plan for an election at the weekend. So, are women politicians brokering a compromise, a way out of the deadlock at Westminster, or is each furthering the interests of their own party? And as the House of Commons prepares to elect a new speaker on Monday, with four female candidates in the running we ask what difference a female speaker could make to our political culture? Jenny Downham writes international bestselling novels including Before I Die and Unbecoming. Her fourth novel, Furious Thing, is about a 15-year-old girl called Lexi. Lexi wants her step-father to accept her, her mother to love her like she used to, and her step-brother to declare his desire to spend the rest of his life with her. She tries to push the fury down but it simmers below the surface waiting to erupt. Why is Lexi so angry? Recent Swedish research into how long pregnant women could be left after their due dates was abandoned last year when six of the babies died. So what is the situation here in the UK? Why do we have steadily increasing induction rates? Are we risk averse or necessarily careful in protecting mother and baby? Jane speaks to Andrew Weeks, Professor of International Maternal Health Care at the University of Liverpool. The untold stories of five of the women of Pre-Raphaelite art whose contribution has been overlooked. Today, Maria Zambaco and her sculpted medallions. Presenter: Jane Garvey Interviewed guest: Helen Lewis Interviewed guest: Katy Balls Interviewed guest: Jenny Downham Interviewed guest: Professor Andrew Weeks Interviewed guest: Dr Jan Marsh Interviewed guest: Dr Alison Smith Producer: Lucinda Montefiore

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2, and of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme, peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. This is the Woman's Hour podcast. Good morning. Were you induced? It's really interesting, actually, if you've had a baby and you were induced, you'll be really interested to know that in the last decade, the rate of induction has gone up from 20% in 2007-2008 up to 31% between 2017 and 2018. Are we getting more risk-averse or are we better informed about the risks?

What is happening here? Were you induced when you had a baby? Let us know how that experience was for you and what you think about it. Perhaps you don't believe that induction should be so common. Why is it happening? At BBC Women's Hour on Twitter and Instagram, we'll talk to one of Britain's leading experts on maternal health on Women's Hour today.

You can also email the programme, of course, via our website. We've also got Jenny Downham here. Her new book is called Furious Thing. She is an award-winning writer of young adult fiction. But that almost sounds as though her books can't be read and enjoyed by adults. Well, trust me, they can. So Jenny's with us today. And we have another woman of the pre-Raphaelite movement today.

We celebrate the artist and muse Maria Zambako on the programme today. Right, let's go back to our long-running Westminster-based soap opera, We Are Where We Are, and this is where we are. We are not leaving the European Union on Thursday, October the 31st. The commemorative coins, we're told, are being melted down, but they may crop up again in the new year, or maybe even before that, who knows. Chances are that there will be an election before Christmas, and a new speaker is going to be elected on Monday. So let's catch up with our good friends Helen Lewis, staff writer for The Atlantic and Katie Balls, deputy political editor. So we are where we are. Where are we again, Helen? Have I got it right just about?

We're on big gamble day. Basically, Boris Johnson failed to secure an election yesterday where he would have needed two thirds of the Commons to back him. So he's now going for a one line bill, which just needs a simple majority. and it's a kind of game of chicken really. The SNP and Lib Dems have showed that they're kind of open to the idea, just Lib Dem MPs alone isn't enough to get him over the line and Labour are having shadow cabinet this morning. If everyone else piles in they don't want to be left behind and look like they're afraid of an election so everybody's just waiting to see who else will jump first but the end of today, it's entirely possible that we might be having an election and it'll be either on December 10th, 11th, 12th, around that time. So this was cooked up, you might

say, by the SNP and the Lib Dems, Nicola Sturgeon and Jo Swinson. Is there a sisterly pact or bond between the two of them, Katie? What would you say about that? Well, I think there are limits to how far the sisterhood on this goes. You've had the Remain or Rebel Alliance, depending how you look at them, which is opposition parties coming together, Joe Swinson, Nicola Sturgeon, also Jeremy Corbyn to an extent, and ultimately uniting in the fact they don't support the Conservative government and seeing what else they have in common. I think that you have seen with Joe Swinson and Nicola Sturgeon, they are able to go further than Labour on issues like this. I think that when it comes to that election, however, there are several seats where they will be going up very closely against each other.

And ultimately, Nicola Sturgeon, I think, would be, or her party at least, would be very happy with Joe Swinson to lose her seat. And she has lost it before. She's lost it before to the SNP. It's an SNP target seat. I think that for several reasons, including fighting unionism in Scotland, it would be a coup if they managed to oust

the leader of the Liberal Democrats. So it has limits. Now, we know that there are various reservations, to put it mildly, amongst Labour MPs about the prospect of an election, but we can't presume that every Conservative MP wants one either, Helen. Quite a lot of them do want to go being able to say we got Brexit done. You know, everyone said we couldn't do it and we can and it's over, which unfortunately, I mean,

for most people, I think have tuned out and really do want to be over. It's not the case. If and when we do leave, we will go to a standstill transition where everything will be the same until December 2020. And then that is what could be dangerously the kind of hard cliff edge. If we don't agree a trade deal by then, then, you know, no deal is kind of back on. And that's providing Jeremy Corbyn with his fig leaf for saying I'm very hesitant about the election. I want to rule out no deal then, not just, you know, the end of January. The real reason I think you could say is it's possible to sum up what Nicola Sturgeon wants in Scottish independence, what Joe Swinson wants, cancel Brexit, what Boris Johnson wants, get Brexit done.

What does Jeremy Corbyn want? It's very hard to articulate Labour's Brexit position, which kind of most people will hear as I want Brexit to go on and on and on for a really long time myself while I negotiate. And that is a very difficult line to fight, I would argue. Let's talk about some of the prominent women. Sian Berry, co-leader of the Greens. Liz Saville-Roberts, she's the plied Cymru MP. They'd rather have a referendum, wouldn't they, than an election. What's going on there?

Well, the problem is that there just simply are not the numbers in this parliament for a second referendum. It's been tried multiple times. So there is a case for, again, driving the SNP and Lib Dem decision, is that they think, actually, we need to try and do something kind of climactic before we actually leave. Because if we do leave, then trying to say, let's go back into the European Union is a much harder argument to make. I mean, you also might mention Arlene Foster of the DUP, somebody who's incredibly important to this. And I think Katie makes an important point. One of the nice things about where we've got to now with women in politics is that nice thing yeah no there is a nice

thing is that we have got to a stage where there are women of entirely different you know political positions fighting with each other right it's actually women are look like full characters and human beings in this they are you know you are not just looking at a one token woman in the lineup of British politics at the moment well that, that is something to celebrate, I guess. Jo Swinson did try to make a point, well, she made the point that six white men stuck in the past, conspiring to wreck our future, the Lib Dem leader said last week about that meeting between Messrs. Johnson and Corbyn. How well do you think that kind of thing plays actually, Katie? Well, again, I think there are limits. I think that the Liberal Democrats definitely see having a female leader as a big advantage, just in terms of things like if we do get into a general election, the television debates. They think Jo Swinson doesn't have to do that much to look like the fresh alternative who stands out.

Well, she just has to wear a dress, doesn't she? Exactly, smile. And compared to these perhaps men who they would depict as old grumpy men leaders who are seen as stale and been there for a long time so i think that she can play into that um but ultimately it just comes down to this this almost this fight which you're seeing play out which is joe smithson hated that meeting because it was about agreeing a program motion to pass a deal it didn't work um but then this week, because Labour flip flop, you see John McDonnell suggesting that Jo Swinson is not true to trying to prevent Brexit because she wants to go for this general election, and they're focused to be second referendum.

So I think it's more about the political fight over it. I think what's interesting, if you look at how various parties are pitching in terms of how this election might play out, ultimately, the Liberal Democrats and the SNP, as Helen says, have concluded that the best chance of stopping Brexit and also to make the gains from that electorally is to have an election before it is delivered. And they're worried that the longer this Parliament plays out, the higher chance of a Brexit deal passing.

Meanwhile, you have Conservative MPs who think for that very reason you should be sat in Parliament trying to pass a Brexit deal because they're worried that you're not going to get, you have Conservative MPs who think for that very reason, you should be sat in Parliament trying to pass a Brexit deal. Because if they're worried that you're not going to get, you know, remain, if you're going to end up in Brexit, why are you going to the polls now? So I think there is some discontent in the Tory party and amongst the 21 Brexit rebels, figures like Amber Rudd, that the party has chosen to go down this election route. And that's because figures in number 10 think it will be electorally beneficial, I think, to have this, you know,

vote for us to get Brexit election. But it's not, I think, mirrored by everyone in the party. What's interesting to me about that meeting is it suggests there is a problem with politics, which it snaps back to a kind of male default, unless people are pushing all the time. And I think you see this also in the speaker election election which there are nine candidates and several of them are women and the argument has been well hang on a minute look we had Betty Boothroyd is it really so important to have another female speaker and ditto I think there was a kind of feeling with in the Tory party post Theresa May of like no we don't come we've done having a woman it's you know it's it's we can have a man now and it shouldn't be like that it should be we should have the best

candidate for the job and hope you would imagine all things being equal, half the time that will be a woman. Well, OK, the female candidates are, for example, Eleanor Lange is a candidate. Rosie Winterton, those are both deputy speakers at the moment. And also Harriet Harman, who's currently mother of the House. So there are kind of reservations about Harriet Harman because she's quite partisan. I once asked her whether or not she thought Theresa May was a feminist. And it kind of pained her enormously, the idea that a Conservative could be a feminist. So I think that people wonder whether or not she...

Because one of the big controversies about John Bercow, the current Speaker, has been, has he been too partisan towards Remain or towards wrecking Brexit? That's how that bit of the Conservative Party sees him. But, you know, what's interesting to me is that the debates are kind of divorced from the gender of the candidates. One of the big things they got asked in the hustings was about breastfeeding in the Commons chamber and in select committees.

And actually Rosie Winterton said, I had small children, I managed it, I didn't need to breastfeed in the Commons, I got through it, I don't think we should. Versus Harriet Harman saying, well, I think we should. So there's not a clean gender split on those issues like that, which is always more interesting to me than everybody having a woman having the woman's opinion.

Well, there is no such thing, as we find out on. Well, there is no such thing as a woman's opinion. Meg Hillier is the other female candidate for speaker, we should say. Does it, the whole business of the winter election, the possibility of a winter election, the focus on students. Now, I am the proud mother of a student daughter. I don't quite see why she and her cohort can't find a way of getting to the right place on the right day if they feel, as we're always told, so passionately about politics and the future of our nation. Yeah, I mean, I think it is being hammed up slightly, this student divide, especially because we are now into the differences between the 9th of December and the 12th of December. And some universities don't actually break up till after the 12th. I mean, the thinking on

the Tory side is ultimately they look to what happened in 2017 in areas like Canterbury and they think they would have held on to Canterbury if it hadn't been for a high student turnout. So it's tactically advantageous if they let students go home, distribute the votes that way, or perhaps don't get caught up in a student wave to get to the polling station.

But ultimately, I think that we can say that I think the students have enough brain power and enough motivation that if they want to vote, they are going to be able to find that polling booth. And actually, the politics researcher, Chris Hanretti, did some research and did a good Twitter thread last night saying that actually the differences between term time and not are marginal.

So I agree with Katie. I think it's a kind of Labour thing. Actually, here's a good way of saying, here's a reason we don't want an election that isn't, we're 20 points behind and we're all a bit scared, actually. We need to talk about Margaret Hodge, and indeed, some of the other MPs threatened with deselection. Margaret Hodge is the Labour MP for Barking. And she won out last night, she hasn't been deselected. Quickly, your thoughts on that, Katie?

Yeah, I think she, it was in the first round, it seems, so she easily won it. And I think it fits into this trend that we've heard Labour MPs raising at the Parliamentary Labour Party meeting. They feel as though the vast bulk of women in the Labour Party who are facing deselection, or the vast bulk of candidates, are women. And some of them connect to anti-Semitism, but also why is it repeatedly women? And I think they want more backup from the leadership on this than they are currently getting and I think the fact that Margaret Hodge has won this will probably offer some encouragement to the others who still have to go through these stages. Yeah what do you say about that Helen I mean Katie's right there is a pattern forming here it does appear to be mostly the women they're

going for. Well look I'm going to get into trouble for saying this but I'm going to say it anyway one of the reasons that Labour brought in all women shortlist wasn't purely a kind of feminist flowering it was also to keep out the hard left. And they thought that this would be advantageous to the centre left of the party. So the idea that under Jeremy Corbyn, actually, you're having some of the same problems playing out is not a massive surprise to me. What's been kind of interesting is not only that Margaret Hodge won her reselection after being such a trenchant critic of the Labour leader, but actually that Tim Corbyn hasn't been doing that well in selections, really. Corbyn's political secretary, Katie Clarke, for example, did not get selected in Vauxhall.

Sally Gimson, who is married to a Tory biographer of Boris Johnson, got selected in John Manzolzi in Bassetlaw. This hasn't been the kind of Corbynite deselection wave and then remaking of the party that I think perhaps they had hoped for. What does that tell us? Well, I think it tells us that actually local issues really matter, that it's really hard to go for selections and it's really hard that, you know, people are coming in from all sides. And actually, the fundamental point of remaking a party is quite hard. I think it also tells us that Jeremy Corbyn is not quite as hegemonic as he was two years ago. I think he's been battered by a membership which is very pro-European, who feel he's been dragged kicking and screaming towards that position,

rather than leading it from the front. If you are in any way a political anorak, Katie, I think it's fair to say that you do want there to be an election. Partly because, well, you pretend you don't want it. Of course you want the election. I do, I really do. As a political journalist, you cannot complain about elections. No, exactly. And I wouldn't complain either from that perspective.

But the truth is, as we learnt two years ago, you can't tell the electorate what they're voting on. And the prime minister is gambling on getting the parliament he needs to deliver Brexit. Will that happen? I think every single Tory MP is haunted by the ghost of 2017, which was Theresa May going in with that big poll lead. And I think there is a chance that the messaging has been a bit clumsy around this because people say quite rightly, you seem to have a majority for second reading of your Brexit deal. Why not pursue it? Is an election really necessary right now? And ultimately, it's very hard to keep to your agenda the Tories wanted Brexit election but Theresa May saw that actually events out of your control can completely move it I would say where there is some confidence is there's a biography of Theresa May out at the moment by Anthony Selden and it paints her as a not particularly inspirational campaigner. Well, grumpy was the adjective.

Grumpy, yeah. He couldn't bring people on side. Stubborn. Whereas our current Prime Minister is what, exactly? I think they see him as the opposite of Theresa May, though. He has different faults, but he does seem to be the polar opposite in many ways. So I think that if the Tories do ruin 2019,

it'll be for very different reasons than they ruined 2017. It's very interesting to me that he seems to have, to some extent, got away with ditching his signature pledge, the one that got him the Tory leadership, really, by saying, you know, we're out on the 31st. It's just going to happen. And actually, I'm not seeing a huge amount of consequences for him and people holding to account on that, which is an interesting prefiguration of election campaign. But I agree with Katie. I am smashing my crystal ball on this one. I will not be drawn on what I think is going to happen

because 2017 was incredibly unpredictable and actually it increased the number of very, very safe seats and increased the number of marginal seats. And looking at seats where there is the Lib Dem, Brexit Party, Conservative, Labour all in the same seat, it's impossible to see how that shakes out at the moment. Really good to see you both. I have a funny feeling because I am prepared to say that you will be back again and I don't care about crystal balls. I loved yesterday, I think the Prime

Minister used the expression blazing urgency at one point and I can honestly say I never want to hear that again. But medication is available. I mean, we've all been there. Thank you both very much, Katie Balls and Helen Lewis. And yes, they'll be back. Now, Jenny Downham is here, the author of Before I Die and Unbecoming. Welcome to the programme, Jenny. You're here to talk about your fourth novel, which is Furious Thing. And it's about a 15-year-old girl called Lexi. Now, Lexi is in a pretty difficult domestic situation.

She really wants her stepdad to accept her. And she wants her mum to go back to the old days when her stepdad to accept her. And she wants her mum to go back to the old days when she really appeared to love her. And her stepbrother, well, she's quite keen on him. She'd like him to declare his desire to spend the rest of his life with her. Let's hear a quick extract from the book. I was often bad after that. It was like something came over me. If it were a movie, I'd grow extra muscles and my T-shirt would rip. But it was just my life. So all that happened was I'd knock a plate to the floor,

or drop a cup, or accidentally swear, and John's attention would turn on me. It reminded me of the way Grandad used to hunt for snails at night with a head torch. They'd get caught in a beam of light, and he'd pick them up and dunk them in a bucket of salt water. John would switch his beam on me and shout and wave his arms around and tell mum I was out of control. Once I took John's favourite ashtray, the one he'd had since being a student, and smashed it on the kitchen floor. Mum had been washing it in the sink and knocked it against the tap. Oh no, she said. Oh hell. I snatched the two

halves from her and flung them. Lex, she said, no. She probably thought she could have fixed it with glue and John would never have noticed the crack, but he would have. He came bounding in. My ashtray. He dropped to his knees to get a better look at the damage. It was annoying me, I said. Go to your room, he whispered. I went to my bedroom and sat by the window. It was ages before I was allowed out. Jenny, just take us into the heart of this household. What is the domestic dynamic here?

Lexi has been living with her soon-to-be stepfather for almost eight years. And when he arrived, the dynamic between her and her mother, there was just the two of them, changed significantly. She is incredibly unhappy and she doesn't know why. She doesn't understand why she's so angry. But as the book develops, she begins to recognise becomes her stepfather, puts her on medication with the collusion of her mother. Yes, he does. She resists that at first. And I think for me, one of the things I really wanted to explore was female anger and the way people look at female anger, because I think we often dismiss it. We

often say she's hysterical or over-emotional. We might not even call it anger. We might say she's sad or upset. And I think we have a different response to male anger. And to me, it was very interesting to put a teenager in a situation where she's thinking, I don't understand what's going on, but I kind of feel my response is the right one. She's a very eloquent expressionist. She sort of throws things around the room and loses her temper. But the adults around her, the power holders are saying, you're the one that's in the wrong. And it was that situation that really intrigued me about that's why I wanted to write about such a subject. Have you got any closer to understanding why, and in this case, it is a man, but why people

need to exert or attempt to exert this sort of control over families? It's really complex. I mean, in this situation, he has a fragile ego. He's not emotionally eloquent. He has the power and doesn't want to give it up. It's undoubtedly a learned response, familial, societal. For me, it was less interesting to explore why he does it and more interesting to think about how we recognise it and when we do, what we can do about it. Her mum was very young when she had Lexi and she falls for this. And he is a charming older man.

I wasn't quite sure how I was meant to feel about lexi's mother i actually got quite angry with her that's a really interesting response i think that uh we very often don't forgive women who are mothers for not protecting their children in any given situation and it's a fundamental misunderstanding of abuse really that we um don't understand that somebody in georg Georgia who's the mother situation has had her self-respect and judgment and strength eroded because she is also a victim of abuse. And she's actually unable to protect her children in a way that she used to do girls in situations like Lexi, when perhaps they are, I'm trying to think the expression would be acting out, I suppose, at school, and maybe they are labelled naughty, troublesome, disruptive. And as you have already said, there's less understanding than there' anger as a strength. We think it allows them to defend and protect and potentially lead. And we often defer to male anger. So I think female anger is seen very differently. I mean, essentially, I think that schools, we need to educate about what a healthy relationship is from a very young age. that seems to me to be the most important thing because by the end of the book Lexi who as you said is in love with somebody hopelessly in love with somebody by the end of the book she's feels a little bit broken because she's been in a situation where she's looking up to a relationship

that's her mother and a soon-to-be stepfather and trying to understand the dynamics of that whilst also falling in love and at the, she wonders whether she's become somebody who likes the bad boy, the kind of boys who perhaps aren't particularly empathetic or play hot and cold. And she is really afraid that she will find the likable, kind boys a little bit unattractive. And I think that can be what happens if you grow up in that kind of dysfunctional environment. It's very difficult for you writing essentially for young adults, although, as I've already said, this book can easily be read by anybody. You have a responsibility for them,

because they are forming their own beliefs, aren't they, whilst reading your work. It's very different if you're writing solely for adults. Yes, it is. I guess I feel my job is to present a story that reflects the truth. I wanted it to be palatable in the sense that obviously it's a difficult subject and I wanted Lex to be brave and funny

and hopelessly in love while also dealing with her temper and her difficult situation. So hopefully it's got a lot of light and laughter in there as well. But yes, there are many gatekeepers as an author when you've finished a book before it gets published. But my responsibility, I think, is not to teach, but to put lots of ideas out and allow young people always moves on to the role of the outsider, the concerned outsider, the friend who thought she knew but couldn't be 100% certain. That's a really difficult one. Well, it is a difficult one. And there are adult women in your book who are concerned. It's really tricky because I think we fear if we see a friend whose relationship we're worried about, that if we approach them and say something, they will A, defend it and B, perhaps retreat, which means that we're in less of a position to help them.

And I think all we can do is listen and validate and perhaps support, steer them towards services such as refuge and women's aid. But I think the most important thing if somebody you're worried about is not to wait for them to come to you because inevitably they won't because many, many women don't even realise they're in this situation and there's a lot of shame attached to it. So I think just to express your concern and say I'm here for you is as much as you can do. Yeah, I thought it was a really interesting book. Thank you very much, Jenny. Thank you. Jenny Dannum, A Furious Thing is the name of the book. And it's about 15-year-old Lexi. And it's definitely, as I say, one that can be read by everybody.

But I suspect that many teenagers will really enjoy it. Thank you very much, Jenny. The folk singer Maddie Pryor will be talking to our Jenny, Jenny Murray, tomorrow on the programme. And on Friday, Woman's Hour is live from Tobacco Dock in East London. This is part of BBC Introducing. I'm really looking forward to this. It's all about trying to encourage young women in particular, from our perspective, into a career in the music industry.

So we'll have A&R experts there. We're going to talk about women of colour and electronic music. There's going to be live music too. It's going to be a goodie. That's Friday morning, live from Tobacco Dock in East London. And I interviewed Helen Mirren yesterday, to it's going to be a goodie. That's Friday morning, live from Tobacco Dock in East London. And I interviewed Helen Mirren yesterday and you can hear that next week on the programme. She was looking fantastic,

sounding fantastic. And best of all, chips were on offer at the hotel where we were all lined up to do the interviews. So Helen Mirren will linger with me because it was great to meet her. But the chips made quite an impact as well actually. So Helen Mirren on the programme next week. Now here's an email, not an email, a tweet from Amy

who says on the subject of induction this is, I was induced with my first baby at 39 weeks because the baby was on the small side. It took 44 hours and the contractions were incredibly strong. I'm 23 weeks pregnant with my second baby and I really don't want to be induced again because one intervention leads to more. So is that true? We're going to talk now to Andrew Weeks, the Professor of International Maternal Health Care at the University of Liverpool. He also works at Liverpool's Women's Hospital. And we're doing this essentially because Swedish research into how long pregnant women could be left after their due dates was stopped last year, tragically after six babies died.

So what is the situation in this country? And why do we have those increasing induction rates I mentioned earlier? Up from 20% in 2007-2008 to 31% in 2017-2018. What is going on? Could money be a factor? Andrew, first of all, can you tell us what you know about what happened in Sweden? Morning, Jane. Yeah, this has been a bit of a strange story because they started a long overdue study, in fact, in Sweden, where they took women who had reached seven days after their due date and tried to work out then what was the right policy for those people. Should we start the labour off immediately at that time or should you wait another seven days to 14 days?

And they were planning to recruit 10,000 women. Now, after they had recruited something like a quarter of that, about 2,500, they saw, sort of as they were expecting, stillbirths occurring in those who they left. And I'm sorry, this must be a triggering thing for people listening, but one in 200 stillbirths is about what they would expect. And that's what they got out of the 1,300 people who waited for that extra seven days there were there were six stillbirths now that's about a one in 230 rate which is exactly pretty much what we would have expected there were no stillbirths in the other ones because actually as soon as they'd arrived at 41 weeks the induction occurred immediately. But to be blunt this study should never have been attempted should it? Well the NICE guidelines in the UK at the moment say to offer induction

at between 41 plus nought that's seven days over and 14 days over so and I think our guidelines quite rightly say that the exact timing to take into account women's preferences in local circumstances. So it wasn't unreasonable for them to say, actually, is there a problem to induction? Because induction isn't a walk in a park either. And I think whilst they were expecting about a one in a 200 stillbirth rate. The worry was that in those who they induced immediately, you'd maybe get complications of the induction and people don't always have easy inductions. So you might get a balancing up of the two arms.

Can we just answer Amy's question, actually? Here she is waiting to have her second baby. She was induced with her first. Is one intervention going to lead to more, to another? To a certain extent it does. And there is the famous cascade of intervention, which I think is a real thing. But first labours are not easy. And many people will talk of that.

And labours tend to get easier and easier the more you have until you start to get to about six or something in which case like yeah sometimes get a bit more difficult but the the initial labour is often more difficult and actually if you look at the overall figures so there was a famous arrive study so-called the big American study of induction routine induction at 39 weeks and they looked very carefully at women's outcomes and they have done in the SWEPIS study this in this new study to see well actually you know we know that some people don't like labour we know that some people don't like induced labour is that an induction problem

or is that a problem due to labour and actually um the uh in the ARRIVE study the amount of pain that people had in the induction group was actually lower than that in those who had the spontaneous birth. Really? Because I think a lot of our listeners will be surprised to hear that. Well, indeed. And the difficulty is that a lot of this is once you've been through it, then you always look back and you think you ascribe problems to what you've been through. If you've had a bad outcome and equally if you've had a stillbirth, then of course it's that there's such awful traumatic things that you look back and think, if only I had made a different decision earlier back. And we as clinicians do as well.

If somebody has a stillbirth under our care, then of course that, you always think, well, if only we'd done something earlier. And it's the same with pain. And it's difficult always to know whether actually it would have made a difference, because if you'd taken a different pathway, actually, it could have ended up with different events. But if we just look at those, the bare statistics, it does look as though in the last decade between 2007 and 2017 and 18, the very nature of childbirth in this country has changed. There are many, many more inductions up from a fifth in 2007 to just about a third a decade later. What is going on and why? Well, I think we're becoming, partly we're becoming more risk averse. So we look at these awful outcomes that some people get,

and we're quite rightly trying to reduce those. The other thing is that we didn't quite understand induction in the past. So in the past, we would have looked at women who had been induced and those who hadn't been and say, actually, the outcomes were worse in those who were induced. But that's a little bit like looking at people who travel in an ambulance and saying, oh, ambulances are disastrous. They're associated with broken legs, heart attacks.

And it's not actually the ambulance's fault. The ambulance is trying to put it right. So what's happening now is that we've got randomised studies whereby you take people to a certain stage in their pregnancy and then flip a coin and they go down one path or the other. And we're seeing in that situation, induction seems to improve outcomes. And money is cost a factor? No, I don't think it is at all. I guess there's a litigation element to it, which of course you want to prevent litigation, but actually I think that's more about wanting to prevent bad outcomes

because money to me isn't the object. The object is the trauma to the couple who have been through that that you're trying to prevent. To be fair, Andrew, in your own article about this, making the case for induction, you do say that cost could well be a factor. Well, I say that it's reduced, but I don't think we should be completely cost driven. No. OK, that's quite a subtle difference.

I mean, if you're the woman who feels that she's going through an induction which she didn't want, you might not quite see what you're getting at there. Well, I guess it depends on why you're doing something. And if I say to you induction seems to reduce costs, then I'm not saying therefore you must go down induction because it's cheaper for the NHS. What I'm reassuring the providers is that actually it doesn't seem to be an expensive intervention. It's not causing additional expense to the NHS. Now, of course, that was an American study, so that's a little bit different, but it's a reassuring fact. I don't think we should be saying, ah, because it's cheaper, therefore. Indeed, it's cheaper to give no health care at all, isn't it?

So I don't know that that argument's particularly helpful. Do women genuinely get the choice they're supposed to have in these circumstances? They should do. They should do, Jane. And one of the things that's come up in this discussion, which has been slightly worrying, is that there's been reports back of women being told that actually they have to go with an induction and somehow if they're not, then somehow they're not caring for their baby properly or they're somehow not responsible parents. The trouble is we're talking about tiny risks here. Although 1 in 200 risk is what it is,

it's about the same risk as the chance of you or I dying in a car accident in our life. So that risk is there, but we should try and cut it down. Well, we can do that if you don't mind being very brief. You can apparently reduce your chances of being induced by being healthier during pregnancy. Yes, that's true. But the problem is that if you look at it as a 1 in 200 risk, then that sounds very high. But actually, if you say there's a 99.5% chance of not having a stillbirth and we can improve it to 99.8% chance of not having a stillbirth,

but you have to go through a difficult labour and you have to go through a medicalised birth, Well, that's a philosophical question, isn't it? In these studies, we're having to induce something like between 200 and 500 women in order to reduce stillbirths. And the question is, how much are you going to put people through a difficult experience in order to improve the outcomes for a very few people? Interesting. Thank you very much. And to the listeners, of course, your thoughts and experiences. Welcome. That was Andrew Weeks from the University of Liverpool. Now let's celebrate more women of pre-Raphaelite art. Today, the artist and muse Maria Zambacco. She lived between 1843 and 1914.

And our expert guides are Dr Jan Marsh, the curator of the exhibition currently running at the National Portrait Gallery in London, and Dr Alison Smith, who was in charge of Tate's major Burne-Jones exhibition last year. Here's Alison. She was Greek by birth. She was incredibly beautiful, and she was wealthy as well. So she was a woman with her own income who was set on carving out her own career. She made a disastrous first marriage to a gynaecologist and lived in Paris, had a couple of children.

I don't know why that's funny, by the way. It went disastrously wrong. So she came back to Britain and decided she wanted to be an artist. She was introduced to Burne-Jones, who was an avant-garde artist at the time, who was making a reputation for doing these quite weird classical medieval subjects using a very odd combination of techniques. But he was seen at the cutting edge of new developments in art. She went to Burne-Jones, she studied with him,

said, I want to become an artist. So he admitted her on quite equal terms. Come to my studio, we'll read poetry together, you can study under me. And of course, the inevitable happened, they fell in love. Burne-Jones' wife, the long-suffering Georgiana, said two things attracted him, beauty and misfortune, and Maria incarnated on both.

So she probably outpoured her troubles and her worries to him, and he became quite protective and, of course, fell in love. And they began this very intense affair, which nearly destroyed his marriage. And it ended up with Maria trying to persuade Burne-Jones to join her on a suicide pact, where they would both take laudanum and jump into the canal and drown themselves. Now, he knew where his comforts lay.

He knew he had a nice, lovely wife, lovely, comfortable home. He just opted out of it at the last minute, leaving Maria to sort herself out. But she became for him a kind of muse. Often she's portrayed as being the temptress or the witch or the sorceress or some beguiling character or else some sort of tragic person like Cassandra. She appears in many different guises in Burne-Jones's drawings and paintings.

One of the really striking paintings is where Burne-Jones's drawings and paintings. One of the really striking paintings is where Burne-Jones portrays Maria as the sorceress Nimue, who is taking the magic books from the magician Merlin. And that's like the muse taking power from the artist. And it seems to me that's what Maria did. What you're referring to is the beguiling of Merlin. And Maria is the model for the sorceress woman who is beguiling poor, poor Merlin who just can't do anything about her charms.

Who's bewitched and... Bewildered. ...locked into a hawthorn bush so he can't escape and that's why the sorceress is able to take his magic spells and use them herself. But the affair fizzled out around 1870 when he decided he would stay within his marriage but he kept in touch with her and he did have an influence on her and on her art but she was sort of strong enough to actually decide to branch out and develop her career in the realm of sculpture.

Yes, so she is not insignificant as an artist. We have in the exhibition four of her very fine portrait medallions, which is quite an unusual medium for a female artist. She studied in London under Alphonse Le Gros, and then she went to Paris to study under Rodin. She was a very serious artist. She made some tabletop-sized sculptures and again, a lot of her work has somehow vanished.

So we're still looking for more works by Maria Zambacco. She often signed them with her maiden name, Cassavetti. So if you should see something that looks late Victorian, portrait medallion, please... What is a portrait medallion? I'm not entirely sure I know what that looks like. It's a big medal. Like a large coin.

I see. A new portrait on one side and an emblematic motive. And these were popular? Yes, people collected them. Right, OK. It was a genre that was pursued in that period. So, I mean, this is... Seriously, you could come across that in an antique shop, couldn't you?

Isn't it? It's not inconceivable that you might... Yes, yes, I know. And there was... One of her subjects was Lily Langtry, and the other thing about... Who was the mistress of Edward VII. Yes, the Prince of Wales. The other thing about portrait medall was the mistress of Edward VII. Yes, the Prince of Wales. The other thing about portrait medallions is that they were cast,

so they came in multiple editions, so it's not just a one-off. Lily Langtry was a very popular figure in the late Victorian era, and so there ought to be more copies of Maria's medals. And she didn't just portray women, she also portrayed men. There's some beautiful portrait sculptures of John Marshall, who was an anatomist and a surgeon, even of Cardinal Manning. That's quite interesting, because a lot of female artists tended to focus on female subjects.

From what I can gather, listening to you both talking about these women, if you had money and connections, there was a chance to pursue your own art, but the less fortunate women were more likely to be models and muses. Is that correct, or is that...? I think it's a generalisation, but it's probably true. So in the exhibition there are certain models, such as Fanny Cornforth and Annie Miller, who are working-class girls.

Annie Miller actually made quite a good marriage, she ended up quite well-to-do. Fanny Cornforth ended up in a sort of workhouse with dementia. Her past life completely obliterated and forgotten. So some of them fared well through their associations and connections and others rather sad endings. Jan, you wrote your book on the Pre-Raphaelite sisterhood over 30 years ago.

And you seem slightly surprised that people are still interested. Yes, I am because art movements go in and out of fashion and the pre-Raphaelites have remained in fashion and I think it's because there's always been new aspects to investigate. I hadn't really thought all those years ago of the models having any agency. They're much more like actors. They wore the costumes, they took the pose and became that part. Somehow, all models in art in the past have sort of been relegated to just mannequins. This programme is very proud of its long tradition of reclaiming women,

but I wonder whether you think, Alison, there might be a danger of some people rushing to give these women too much credit in terms of their artistic ability. That's why I think this exhibition at the MPG strikes just the right note. When I worked at the Tate on the Pre-Raphaelite exhibition in 2012, I think there were only a few works by female artists, about eight. And that was wrong? It was right, actually. I would defend it. Because one wanted to make the point women were involved with the Pre-Aphelite movement,

but at the same time it was thematically arranged, and you wanted to get all the great works in there. And all the great works, quite frankly, are by the male artists. Ones by the women often tend to be quite small, often works on paper, so tend to be overlooked. And sometimes the comparison has not always served women well. Whereas the beauty of this exhibition is looking at the women on their own terms, and in terms of these mini biographies, showing some of the artists alongside the models,

alongside the help meets. And that provides more context to enable visitors to understand the circumstances under which they worked or they lived. They just couldn't compete with the men who had greater access to education, opportunities, an unbroken career not interrupted by childbirth or domestic responsibilities. And you heard there from those two brilliant experts, Dr. Alison Smith and Dr. Jan Marsh. And I can recommend that. That's the Pre-Raphaelite Sisters exhibition running at the National Portrait Gallery. It's on now. It's on for a couple of months, actually, but it's well worth a look if you can get down to London now or indeed up to London.

She said, remembering that everybody lives in all sorts of different places up or down or across wherever it might be. It's a very good exhibition now um to your thoughts on the conversation with andrew weeks about the increased rates of induction louise says my daughter celebrates her ninth birthday today well happy birthday to your daughter and i had to be induced as she was 12 days late and showed no signs of budging i was actually disappointed by the thought of being induced she was my days late and showed no signs of budging. I was actually disappointed by the thought of being induced. She was my first child and I ultimately wanted to give birth in my local birthing centre. However, because I was overdue, the birthing centre wouldn't take me,

so off to hospital I had to go for my booked inducement. Well, it certainly took away the natural feel of my experience, so I'd be in favour of letting nature take its course more in these circumstances. An anonymous listener says, I was induced in the August of 2012 and I was told it was because of my age. I was 41, so I was technically, what's that, it's that wonderful phrase, geriatric prima gravida. Well, I was one of those as well, if it's any comfort. Anyway, she says, I was one of those as well, if it's any comfort. Anyway, she says I'd also conceived via IVF. The pregnancy was a healthy one with no issues. Induction didn't work. I spent three and a half days in labour. My cervix never dilated more than

a centimetre. And in the end, I had a C-section, which was written up as elective even though realistically i had absolutely no choice it was utterly horrendous for several reasons alexandra i was induced with my second baby he was a good two weeks overdue having had a so-called natural childbirth the first time i wasn't even going to take my coat off until i had an epidural. The result, pain-free labour. She says here, I only put my book down so I didn't look uncaring. And it gets better or worse, depending on your view of things. I then delivered a 10 pound, one and a half ounce baby. Thank God he wasn't allowed to get any bigger. The detail missing there, Alexandra, is what was the name of the book you were reading? I mean, that is so cool. I only put my book down because I didn't

want to look uncaring. Karen says, interesting item in the programme today. My first daughter arrived 16 days overdue in her own good time. I had had a hospital appointment to be induced when she was 10 days over, but I was brave enough to cancel it. Was I lucky? I just had a hospital appointment to be induced when she was 10 days over, but I was brave enough to cancel it. Was I lucky? I just had a strong feeling it wasn't right for me. And Stacey makes this point. I'm fuming. A man on Woman's Hour talking about women's choices when faced with induction. Stacey, on the man point, Andrew Weeks is an absolute expert. And I know he's a man, but sometimes we have to accept that he really does know his stuff. Anyway, so I'll continue with the rest of your email.

I'm a doula, a birth partner of 15 years, and I've been with women when they've chosen induction. It's stressful and painful. Yes, I mean, that is, it's certainly not an uncommon belief that birth has been over-medicalised, that men have got too involved and have made all kinds of decisions that women might not necessarily have made. But, God, it is complicated. And I absolutely get Andrew Weeks when he says that we are risk-averse. And who, honestly, would want to risk anything happening to their child or their daughter if she's giving birth or whatever it might be? So I've got sympathy for

everybody involved here but we are interested in all your opinions so keep your thoughts coming. Email clearly best for this because it gives you more space and more time so let us know what you think via the website bbc.co.uk slash womanshour. Thank you for listening. Jenny's here tomorrow amongst her guests Maddy Pryor who'll talk about 50 years in steele i span and don't forget friday's edition of the program live from tobacco doc we're talking about women in the music industry how you get into it what things you need to know about a and r and all kinds of other important details so that's bbc introducing is the um is the bbc project that we're very proud to be a part of on fr. So that's Women's Hour Live from Tobacco Dock then.

Here's a question. A man escapes from one of the world's most brutal dictatorships. He's risked everything to do it. But once he's free, he digs a hole and he tunnels straight back in again. Why? I'm Helena Merriman and over the past six months, I've been investigating an extraordinary escape story for BBC Radio 4. A story involving a tunnel, a spy, and an American TV network.

To subscribe, search for Intrigue Tunnel 29 on BBC Sounds. 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. Available now.