Woman's Hour - Theresa May's Legacy for Tory Women, Angélique Kidjo, Anna ‘Delvey’ Sorokin

Episode Date: July 29, 2019

The UK’s second female Prime Minister stepped down last week after a turbulent three years in office. In the last few weeks commentators have picked over Theresa May’s failure to deliver Brexit, her loss of the Conservative majority in the 2017 General Election and her limited progress in tackling the burning injustices she described on the steps of Downing Street in 2016. Today, we turn to a subject that Woman’s Hour first interviewed Theresa May about nearly 20 years ago, encouraging women to stand as MPs and to get on in the Conservative Party. We discuss her legacy for women in politics and look at how women will fare under Boris Johnson’s premiership. Angélique Kidjo is a singer from Benin who’s won three Grammys and made 13 albums. This year she makes her Proms debut with her nine-piece band in a late-night tribute to the celebrated salsa songstress Celia Cruz.Anna ‘Delvey’ Sorokin tricked New York’s city’s elite into thinking she was a wealthy German heiress. In reality she was a fraudster with no trust fund who convinced banks, hotels and friends that her fortune could cover her lifestyle as well as her future plans to set up an arts foundation in her name. She was found guilty of a number of charges including grand larceny, attempted larceny and theft of services. Rachel Deloache Williams, a key witness in the trial, discusses her new book ‘My Friend Anna’.Presenter: Tina Daheley Interviewed guest: Anne McElvoy Interviewed guest: Katy Balls Interviewed guest: Angélique Kidjo Interviewed guest: Rachel Deloache Williams 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. Hello and welcome to Monday's edition of the Woman's Hour podcast. I'm Tina Dehealy. I'm Tina Dehealy. She's been described as the undisputed queen of African music. The three-time Grammy Award-winning singer Anjali Kijo is here to talk about her prom's debut tomorrow night and her new album Celia, a tribute to the Cuban singer who died 15 years ago.

Now, unfortunately, we're not able to podcast live the full music element of today's programme and that's because of copyright reasons. Anna Sorokin was the fake German heiress who scammed her way into the high life in New York, conning banks, high-end hotels and restaurants along the way. Anna's friend Rachel Deloach-Williams is with us in the studio to tell us about a book she's written about what happened.

But first, Theresa May. The UK's second female Prime Minister stepped down last week after a turbulent three years in office. In the last few weeks, commentators have picked over her failure to deliver Brexit, her loss of the Conservative majority in the 2017 general election and her limited progress in tackling the burning injustices she described on the steps of Downing Street in 2016. Well today we turn to a subject that Women's Hour first interviewed Theresa May about nearly 20 years ago, encouraging women to stand as MPs

and to get on in the Conservative Party. Joining us to discuss her legacy for women in politics and how women will fare under Boris Johnson's premiership, I'm joined by Anne McElvoy, Senior Editor at The Economist, and Katie Balls, Deputy Political Editor of The Spectator. But first, a bit of Woman's Hour archive. Here's Theresa May as Conservative Party Chairman in 2003, as Home Secretary in 2013, and last year as Prime Minister, speaking on the 100th anniversary of some women getting the vote. I'm interested in actually being able to work with the associations,

firstly to show them the importance of getting a greater diversity of candidates, and among that, obviously, getting a good number of women selected. I hope that my appointment will show them, actually actually that women can do a good job in Parliament. I think that's very important, actually just showing people in associations who perhaps may not have been involved in interviewing for jobs at all, or certainly for many years, and who have seen women in a different sort of role in the past, that they will actually see that women make good members of Parliament, that we can progress through the party and do a good job. The 58 candidates selected in target seats, that they will actually see that women make good members of Parliament, that we can progress through the party and do a good job. With 58 candidates selected in target seats, 49 are men, you must be terribly disappointed.

Well, obviously, Jenny, I would have hoped that we would have had more progress than this at this stage. But can I just say that actually we're doing slightly better in terms of the overall number of women at this stage of a Parliament that have been selected than we had at the last parliament. So, as a whole, we are progressing. But, yes, I still think that you can achieve a significant increase in the number of women coming into parliament through positive action rather than the all-women shortlists. As it happens, we've had some examples of all-women shortlists in the Conservative Party.

That's come about because those are the choices that associations have made at the grassroots level. But I'm very pleased that we had a very significant increase in the number of women Conservative MPs at the last election. Some of those 2010 intake are already in ministerial positions and doing an excellent job. Well, I think we've, I mean, we've made huge strides. If you just look now at what happened, at what we've seen in Parliament in terms of the number of women in Parliament, but also the roles women are playing in public life generally. The Director of Public Prosecutions is a woman.

The Home Secretary is a woman. The Prime Minister is a woman. The head of the Metropolitan Police is a woman. The head of the National Crime Agency is a woman. The head of the Metropolitan Police is a woman. The head of the National Crime Agency is a woman. We see women playing so many more roles in public life. But I think, sadly, what we see today is there still needs to be, in some areas, a change of attitude to women. We have very sadly seen an increase in what I would say a sort of aggressive attitude in politics which means that I think we do and we have seen increased intimidation of candidates, parliamentary candidates most often focused on women. I think we need to just step back and say that sadly this is

will lead I think is leading to some women feeling that they don't want to put their head above the parapet they don't want to take part in public life. And what do they say? All political careers end in failure. Is that more of a problem if you're a woman leader and a woman leader of a party that still, as we've just heard, struggles to get women to stand and to get them elected in the same numbers as men. Well, the interesting thing would be, would you see the Theresa May story as ending in failure in any sense to do with her gender or not? I mean, it ended in failure partly because the task, I think, was nigh impossible and the way she approached it didn't help that.

It's interesting listening back there, her communication style was far better and far more relaxed when she was sort of on her way up. I was thinking exactly the same thing. I think this is something that has always made me a bit sad about Theresa May and a bit about the coverage of Theresa May. I mean, we got to the point where she had very, very few apologists in the press or indeed anywhere else saying that she had actually been quite a consequential figure. And sometimes when I said that, people would look at me very askance. But I remember having covered her for a long time.

She was never absolutely all singing, all dancing, laugh a minute kind of politician, but a lot of men aren't either. And she did have that fluency and that drive that you could hear, I think, very well in your clips there. And the difficulty now is it's not that there aren't any women. I mean, there are certainly a lot of women and Boris Johnson's government, which I'm sure we'll talk about in a minute, does feature a lot of women. The question is always which women in which roles. And sort of treating women as a bit of a job lot, I think, is part of the problem. We need women from all kinds of views and all kinds of backgrounds and temperaments in politics. And yes, and if some are as technocratic as Theresa May, then they also need to be able to thrive too.

And I'm not sure that we allow women the same the way. Katie, Theresa May set up Women to Win with Baroness Anne Jenkin. Both of them were disappointed when the number of Conservative women MPs remained stubbornly stuck at just 13 at the 2005, I should say, general election. Does Theresa May have a different legacy for the female MPs who've been selected and elected, many more of them since then? I think she does. And I think if you look at her ability to deliver a Brexit deal,

lacking, if you look at her legacy in terms of the Conservative Parliamentary Party, the number of female MPs, and also just speaking to female ministers on the rise, a lot of them have very positive things to say about Theresa May, her role in Women to Win. Now, the Conservative Party is a party that is hostile to the idea of all women shortlists, something that Labour have brought in, because there's an argument and you saw attack lines, even this weekend from a few male Tory politicians, that this is tokenism. So what Women to Win tried to do was get women there on merit, but by giving them extra support that they might need, because they found that often women would think twice about sending off that form. If you look at how long it takes to decide to go and run to be an MP in the first place, women would have more

debts. That was one of their findings. And looking at sometimes it was a financial boost in the support, sometimes it was a mock selection meeting. So things that you would be a bit worried about. And I think it has had a substantial effect. And there's lots of people today in Parliament, in the Tory party, who do credit that group for getting them there. And the recent political obituaries of Theresa May have not been great. But is it all likely that history will be kinder about her skills for handling detail and her tenacity?

Boris Johnson, in contrast, is criticised for lacking any detail. Yes, and let's see how that goes now that he's in number 10. I think it's very hard to say, you know, the idea that history will judge you very differently given that history, capital H, whatever it is, is largely going to be dominated by the account of Brexit and what happened around Brexit. So I think for Theresa May, and I think one thing that she found sense that there was a sort of gap in small-c conservatism that she felt had got lost somewhere between the modernisers, David Cameron, George Osborne. She didn't really get along with them,

and she felt that they were not fair to her. Then she ended up being slightly isolated in her own world as Home Secretary, not really part of the project. And she felt that the people that were missed out, she called them the just about managings. And she wanted to, I think, to get to that level of society that doesn't really count when you talk so much about welfare. It's not those at the very bottom of the heap when it comes to earnings and opportunities, but it's not those who can simply be told to go and aspire and they'll look after themselves. It's the ordinary hardworking families. And the Conservatives have always tried to target this group. Obviously, their definition has changed over the years and

their methods have. I think that meant a lot to her. And I think we'll see her do something about that after her time in office. It always struck me as the thing that she sounded, she cared most about. She cared more about that than other things. Unfortunately, the legacy will be that it just never got off the ground. There was no policy offer that didn't have the big B word written right across it in green ink. Katie, does that reflect what you've been hearing, your conversations with Tory MPs? I think when it comes to Theresa May at the moment, there is a negative narrative. And when it comes to her legacy or her Brexit strategy, there is a chance history judges it kinder in the future, depending what happens under Boris Johnson. This idea of reaching a compromise belatedly.

But I think in terms of her domestic agenda, she clearly was on to something when she initially started and she gave that burning injustices speech, she was far ahead, surging in the polls, and then quite quickly went wrong because she wasn't a natural communicator. I think when it comes to her legacy in terms of promoting women, she also isn't without criticism. When she first did her first forming the government reshuffle, she promoted a lot of women. You had two women in the great offices of state because Theresaa may was one and then you also had amber rudd and array but as it went on and people resigned or they had to be sacked for various reasons there was a tendency to not think about

that balance anymore and i remember in i think it was the one of the most recent one of her final reshuffles uh there was a female conservative Conservative MP who complained that she had promoted more people called Jeremy than women. So I think, conversely, under almost a male Prime Minister, I think there's greater scrutiny sometimes about female appointments. So that's why I'm speaking to female MPs. I think there's some positivity about what you'll get under a Boris Johnson government in terms of promotions. It is interesting. We are picking through the Conservative record here in Theresa May. The Conservatives had two female prime ministers, Lib Dems now have Jo Swinson,

and all female shortlists and all, Labour is still struggling to get a woman to the top, and it still looks like that's a very difficult road to hoe. So a lot of things seem to be cultural, as well as what's written down in the memos and in the policy documents. Of course, Theresa May was happy to talk about herself being a woman leader and how she did the job differently. And there were reflections and tributes to her time as the second female prime minister of the UK from across the House. Harriet Harman, a newly elected Lib Dem leader who you've just mentioned, Jo Swinson here. Jo Swinson. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

When I think of girls growing up in eastern Bartonshire, it is inspiring for them to see women in positions of power, whether that's as First Minister of Scotland or as Prime Minister of our United Kingdom. Can I ask the Prime Minister what advice she has for women across the country a'r Prif Weinidog o'n Gwledydd Unedig. A allaf i ofyn i'r Prif Weinidog beth sydd ei gyngor ar gyfer dynion ar draws y wlad ar sut i ddelio â'r menywod sy'n meddwl y gallant wneud swydd gwell ond nad ydynt yn barod i pan fydd y wlad yn golygu cyfnod mor anodd i ni. Ond mae ei ddod i ffwrdd yn adnodall arall, oherwydd er bod ni'n mynd i'n Prif Weinidog 77,

mae hi'n unig y ddwy fferm i gael ei gyrru. A'i roi'n ymwneud â threfnu traffigwyr dynol a'r anhygoelwyr o weithredaeth amdanynt fel prifysgol yn y canol ei Lywodraeth. Ac, a allaf i ddweud, yn y ffordd hwn, mae ei haeddu'n sicr, oherwydd mae pawb yn y Tŷ hwn yn ymddiriedol â hynny, ac byddwn ni i gyd yn ymrwymo i wneud hynny. Mae hyd yn oed ei chrydyddion mwyaf llwyr yn rhaid eu cydnabod, ei hymrwymiad i'r gwasanaeth cyhoeddus, ei ddedigaeth i'r wlad hon, ac mae'r gwaithau hynny y dydyn ni ddim arall ddim yn ddefnyddio. those are qualities that none of us should ever take for granted. But can I just offer her a word of sisterly advice? Sometimes you just have to be a bit more careful

when a man wants to hold your hand. I thank her for her service as our Prime Minister and I sincerely wish her all the very best for the future. Now, talking about being sisterly, Margaret Thatcher was famously criticised for not doing things for other women, for not being sisterly. She was praised through his met PMQs for doing things for women. Is that the criteria by which all women leaders will now be judged?

Should they be judged that way in politics? Well, I certainly would bridle at the word sisterly. No one's asking the blokes to go around being brotherly to each other. I mean, this is true. This is, you know, come on. And it also has that slightly sort of hectoring tone. I think that that criticism, you're not sisterly enough or you're not the right kind of sister. And, you know, you know what? You can see sort of a little bit where that is is going with the Labour Party at the moment.

But I do think there is, it's consistency. And I think Katie said something interesting earlier, when you start out with a good balance and you're really pushing forward. And we know Theresa May did really advocate for that inside the Conservative Party. And then you get there and the pressures of the job are great and someone falls by the wayside and Amber Rudd, who she clearly did trust, and she doesn't have very close relationships with women, but not all women do have close relationships in the same way.

And then you don't replace them with other women. And I think that sometimes it can just be that you took your eye off the ball, but it can look a bit like you have a kind of fair weather approach to it. And that's something I think this government will have to watch as well. It's very, very balanced, bringing in lots of women, but lots of Brexiteer women who were kept out before. What will happen when they start to fall by the wayside? Some of them surely will.

Although we've got eight women in a full cabinet of 33, is it fair to say Boris Johnson has a woman problem? There was an aspiration to get to 50-50, Katie. Well, I think the Boris Johnson aim, and she sort of briefed that quite heavily, was to have a cabinet that reflects modern Britain. And the women, 50-50, hasn't happened. They have very quick to point out that it's the highest number of ethnic minority background MPs in that cabinet. I think when it comes to women, definitely ahead of it, there was a sense that he had a problem

because speaking to Boris Johnson supporters supporters he discussed the great offices of state and one thing that happened was under David Cameron Theresa May was home secretary and ever since then there's been this implicit rule there should always be at least one woman holding a great office of state and there is a sense that who's that going to be and the most controversial appointment in the Boris Johnson cabinet I think is, is Priti Patel as Home Secretary. And there's lots of Conservative MPs who are a bit unsure about it. There's the fact that she left her last cabinet role, not by choice, it was a more junior role. So the question of stepping up to such a big brief. But Boris Johnson was pressed on this fact of who are you going to have as your,

because apparently there's just one in this case, but who are you going to have as your female occupant of a great office of state so i i think efforts have been made there but i do think boris johnson's supporters and his close allies in general are male and that's meant that we had lots of speculation about would we get the first ever female chancellor liz truss's name was thrown in for that and let's not forget predominantly from a certain background um eton oxbridgeated public schools. Well, yeah, all right. I mean, yeah, sure, that's true. It just depends also quite how you sort out that data.

But you could also look at people like Liz Truss, who was perhaps the other contender for one of the really big jobs, possible contender for Chancellor, didn't get that job. But, you know, it still is there in Cabinet. It's from a comprehensive background you know there is quite a lot you can either focus on the raw numbers and you will find i was about to say something else actually on the war cabinet the so-called war cabinet which is supposed to drive the delivery of brexit now that it goes back to being all male that worries me a bit more than

againlessly kind of trying to sort through the you know the data of who to how many oxbridge is enough i don't know. What are we here? I mean, it's not the Soviet Union. So let's look at actually people with their own achievements. Let's look at a lot of women who come from... Nicky Morgan's another example, not a Brexiteer, back as culture secretary, also from a state school background. So look at the women, as we're on that subject today,

and their backgrounds. I think the sweeping data can sometimes end up with you just sort of trying to find the right amount of kind of numbers to feed into the machine. But it's all about people. It's how they do their jobs. I worry a bit that this, I don't really like the phrase war cabinet, but if we've got to have it,

if it's going to drive the Brexit process, it does seem, shall we say, unfortunate that after all of this, and I think that Katie's described there on the drive to get the women in, that they somehow didn't make it to that delivery unit. Katie, does the sacking of Penny Maudlin give particular cause for concern? She was praised widely for her stint as Defence Secretary, a short stint, her time at International Development, and even tipped as a future leader. Yes, she was the first ever female defence secretary. And I think it was one of the big shocks of that,

not reshuffle, the forming of Boris Johnson's quite different government. I think on Penny Morden, ultimately, you want to have the best people for the jobs, regardless of gender. I think Penny Morden was a shock, though, because lots of people thought she was doing that job well and she'd only been there a couple of months. I think it comes down to personal relationships and there was a sense in the Boris camp

that they, I think, felt that Penny Morden was going to support them. Then she supported Jeremy Hunt. So it was all these, what you would get, I think, in any reshuffle, regardless of gender. But I do think in terms of optics, it was a bold move. And I was speaking to Conservative MPs, oh, they won't move Penny because that would look awful,

moving the first Female Defence Secretary clearly wasn't something they were worried about they have promoted a number of women who I think they have closer relationships with I think ultimately it is about having who you think you can work with and who is the most suited for that role but there is also sometimes the sense that

there are a lot of very talented women now in the Conservative Party so this idea that there aren't enough to go around to certain roles, I think, just doesn't stand up in a way. Perhaps it did when you looked at the ratio in the past and you said more haven't been promoted. The nutrition rate is also quite high in these jobs. So sometimes we think, well, they're not out forever, particularly these days. They seem to be out for about half a year before someone else falls off the log. Do you think, Anne, that Tory strategists will be worried about how reassuring or not Boris Johnson looks to women voters who,

as we know from opinion polls, favour economic stability and safeguarding public services that they and their families use? Yes, again, I mean, that's something that the gap between what people say and how they vote is often quite elastic. So you will often find that, you know, the same goes, by the way, if you ask men things as well, I should make that very clear, that, you know, you can have a group of people who say that they favour one thing, but actually it's outweighed

by the fact that they think someone sounds good to them or that they like their sort of tax policies or whatever it may be. And women, it turns out, are quite good at discriminating how they want to vote. So I would guess that in Boris's case, what are the negatives that he's seen as a bit unreliable? We heard Amber Rudd way back in the referendum campaign make that charge that he was a fun bloke to talk to at a party, but you wouldn't want him to drive you home. Sometimes the problem has been Boris Johnson's driven quite a lot of people home. So there was that sense of his personal behaviour,

any sort of recommendation or otherwise for his ability to do the job being number 10. He's the first Prime Minister to get a live-in girlfriend, moving into number 10 at the weekend. So he's clearly doing things rather differently. I would suggest we just need to let that settle and see what women think about it. I don't think we can absolutely predict whether women will not like it.

We are out of time. But just in a word from both of you, which party will be the next to produce a woman prime minister, do you think? Jo Swinson says she could be the next prime minister. I think it looks tricky. And judging by history, that would mean I think it would probably be the Conservatives again. Okay. Yes, I think that's difficult because I think Labour might try to push Emily Thornberry into the leadership or a younger woman. But whether they'd get to number 10, questionable. Might be back.

Three for the Tories, let's see. OK. Anne McElvoy, Katie Balls, thank you very much. Still to come, the woman who was duped by the fake German heiress, Anna Sorokin, is here to tell us why she's written a book about what happened. Angelique Kidjo is a singer from Benin who has three Grammy Awards and 13 albums to her name. As part of World War I commemorations last year, she sang a special tribute to African soldiers in front of world leaders in Paris.

She sung at the United Nations and in front of Nelson Mandela. She's been named as an influential woman in countless lists, been described as the undisputed queen of African music and is a campaigner for girls' education. Well, tomorrow, hard to believe, Angelique's doing something she's never done before, and that's sing at the proms with a nine-piece band in a late-night tribute to Celia Cruz.

Her latest album is a tribute to the Cuban salsa singer who died 15 years ago. I'm delighted to say Angelique's with me now. Welcome. Thank you for having me. When did you first hear Celia Cruz's music? Well, I was a teenager when I first heard Celia Cruz. For me, salsa has always been a male-dominated music genre.

And I tried to believe that it was a woman that was going to be a frontrunner, not a backing singer or just a puppet to be used in a salsa band. And she came on stage, and she flipped my life upside down. I've always been looking for idols and role models, and Miriam Akiba was one of them, and a lot of women like Aretha Franklin. But Celia Cruz, when she arrived on stage, she exudes so much confidence, so much power,

so much positivity in knowing where she came from and to answer to racism and slavery in one word, Asoka, prove her sense of humor deep embedded in her soul. And for me, from that moment on, as a young girl growing up, she brought to my attention that as a woman, you can do whatever you set yourself to do. That brain, intelligence, has no sex, has no gender, has no nationality, has no color. It's just the fear that holds us back, us women.

If we are bold enough, we can challenge any man because, as I said, our brain has no gender. And that's, for me, the turning point of how I decided what kind of artist I wanted to be. She had a huge influence on your life. Absolutely. You got to meet her. What was that like? Wow. I was like... I mean, I always tell people, when you adore an artist,

be ready to meet them. But they say never meet your idols, don't they? Yeah, they say that, and sometimes you get disappointed. But it was not a disappointment for me because she embraces me. There's a friend journalist of mine that introduced me to her. Her bands were already on stage and her husband is her musical director, right?

So she was in the dressing room and he introduces me as a singer from Africa and she called me my African sister. I don't speak Spanish at that time so we start to talk and then I start singing her song

Kimbera, Kimbera, Kimbera and then she said okay hold it you're going to sing on stage with me. So she invited me on stage and when she introduced me I was like

what? Who is this? We didn't rehearse this. Who is this lady? And then silly I don't know what she said to her husband and her husband

go okay she wrote the post. So did you sing in Spanish? Yeah, I do. I do now. I do sing in Spanish now. So she gave me the microphone. I started singing. The public was like, huh? Who's this? Who's this? But was it a positive? Who's this? Absolutely. She was crying, laughing.

What you both share in common is you were both forced into exile from your home countries. Yep. Celia from Cuba and you, Benin. I mean, both of us, we had that passion for truth, passion for freedom. And when you're living in a country, people have lately having romance,

finding that dictatorship is romantic. It's not romantic. It's the worst thing that can happen to you ever. Because the freedom we have to go out, to take a plane ticket to go somewhere is taken away. You can't leave your country without authorization. It's just crazy. And for both of us, living free to be able to do our art was at the heart of everything. If you're not free, you have nothing to give.

If you're not free, you can't love. If you're not free, you can't be give. If you're not free, you can't love. If you're not free, you can't be a human being. So she fled to America. And years after, I went to America. I first stopped in France. And when I moved to America in the late 90s, I happened to live in the same street and the same block where she lived in when she arrived.

By sheer coincidence? It is. I mean, I think it's what it was meant to be, will be. And because we have that kind of energy, we believe in our human family beyond our own safety. And for me, any human being that is suffering this world, that suffering, I feel it in my soul. And that's how we are the artists that we are. I know you've talked about finding your African roots in Celia's music

and the fact that it was inspired by Yoruba traditional songs that migrated over to the Americas with slave workers. I didn't realise that it was always linked to men. Salsa, is that changing now? Oh, well, Celia, when she came, she definitely brought Latin American women to the forefront of singing also on stage to take. I mean, La Ma Ponsa is there. I mean, a lot of women start singing salsa even till today.

And even though the men are still playing, I'm not against men. Let me make this clear. I'm feminist. And I believe in the fact that men and women are made to live together. To be pro-women, you don't have to be anti-men. Yeah, but some feminists are anti-men. But I'm not. I'm just a woman that was raised by a father

that said to me, go out there and challenge people with your brain is your ultimate weapon. Your sex don't matter. So for me, Celia represents that. That's why doing this album and bringing back the African roots in every music,

every single music on this planet have African DNA on it. It doesn't matter what skin colour you hold. It doesn't matter what language you speak. African DNA is embedded in you because if you're almost sapiens, you're definitely an African. You paid the ultimate tribute, Angelique, with an album. You've made so many albums. You've won Grammys. Why now? Why now? I don't know.

It's always something that has to do with my inspiration. If I'm not inspired to do something, I can't just put myself to do it because I can't even start working. And I can't put the truth into it. If you are inspired to do something, it's like you are possessed. So you've got to the truth into it. If you are inspired to do something, it's like you are possessed. So you got to give birth to it. It's like when a woman is about to give birth, I've been through that. You can't hold back but push it. And for me, that's what it is.

And it's timely also because of all the stuff that is going on around us. We are really playing a really dangerous game. I mean, with our freedoms. When we go in a voting booth and we vote for liars, for people that can take our freedom away from us, it's dangerous. For me, music is the answer to everything. Music has brought me to the world to see our differences and our richness together and the bond that we have together.

And if we break that bond because of some few people that are angry, that can't live their life, that are frustrated about this world that is evolving, we can't pay for that. The minority cannot rule the majority. And that's what we are seeing today because our political system is not really a democracy anymore. We are lucky enough to be able to hear you performing live now. Now and tomorrow at the BBC Proms. Yes. Yay! We will with your nine-piece band

but for now I'll let you take your place here in the studio. With my percussion player. Yes, with your percussion player. You are accompanied by Maguette Su playing the djembe drum. And this is the track Quimbarra. Thank you. Wonderful.

Angelique Kijoe, thank you very much. Performing Kimbara from her album, Celia and Angelique will be performing tomorrow night's Late Night Proms with a nine-piece band. Thank you to Angelique and also to Maguette Su, who was playing the djembe drum. Anna Sorkin tricked New York City's elite

into thinking she was a wealthy German heiress. In reality, she was a con artist who tricked banks, hotels and even a private jet operator into believing that her fortune could cover her lavish lifestyle. When in April, she was found guilty of theft of services and grand larceny charges, having stolen more than £150,000. She was sentenced to between four and 12 years in prison. Rachel Dinesh-Williams was her friend and a key witness in the trial. Her accusations

of being made responsible for a $62,000 bill formed one of the larceny charges. Rachel's with me now to discuss her new book, My Friend Anna. Rachel, welcome. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. You were a photo editor working at Vanity Fair when you first met Anna. That was back in 2016, I think, when you were out with friends. What was your first impression of her? You know, it wasn't anything too exceptional. I met her through friends, as you said.

She made herself right at home. She was kind of quirky. She had a high-pitched European accent that I believed to be German at the time. And she was nice and fun. She seemed to like having fun. She was just a fun young woman. That was one night, but you went on to become good friends. How close were you?

Well, in 2016, that summer when I first met her, we weren't particularly close. She was kind of just a part of our group. And I saw her a few times one- one, but she left the country because she wasn't a US citizen to reset her visa towards the end of 2016. And when she returned in February of 2017, she checked into a hotel near my apartment, reached out. And from that point forward for the next, I'd say, two months, we were close friends. I saw her almost every day. She was generous to people, handing out big tips, paying for things. How generous was she to you in spending terms and splashing the cash? Sure. She was, as you said,

very generous. That wasn't, you know, at the time for me, the defining feature. It was more just, she was kind of, we were like a, I want to say a twosome in a platonic way. She and I spent a lot of time together, and she was very convincing as to the things that she wanted to spend time doing. And I was happy to be passive at that point in my life. We often hung out in her hotel. We went to the restaurant, which was on the ground floor, which is a fancy french place called the cuckoo often um she also had arranged for personal training sessions with a it's been she's been described as a celebrity personal trainer and anna invited me to join her for those sessions so you did lovely things together she was living in a very fancy hotel and you were

part of that lifestyle yes she invited you on what was supposed to be an all expenses trip to pay trip. She was paying for it to marry Keshe. But you were made responsible for bills that added up to $60,000, which you didn't agree to. How did you how did that end up happening? Oh, it was it was death by paper cuts. And then there is the major charge, which was the hotel. It started out with one small ask. And then it built onto that.

Oh, since I already owe you money, would you just cover this one thing too? So, you know, at that point... Because you mean you didn't work as a photo assistant for Vanity Fair? Oh, gosh. Your salary wasn't... No. Generous enough to be able to afford a $60,000 trip? No, no, no. It was a shock to me too that my credit cards could even put through that much money. That was mind blowing. Um, but I did work as a photo producer. I was

used to fronting costs for photo studios for travel and then being reimbursed by my company. Um, so I think my credit limit was higher because of that, obviously. Um, but that also the way it unfolded, it wasn't, she didn't ask me to front the cost for the hotel in this explicit way. It was this escalating tension with the hotel managers where by the end of the trip, we were sort of more or less trapped in this villa with these managers who weren't going to leave without a credit card. And I was told it would be temporary. There's a reason I wrote a book to explain what happened. And a lot, I've read it.

I spent yesterday reading it cover to cover. I wanted to know what happened, all the details. A large part of it is devoted to you trying to get Anna to make good on these credit card charges. Why did it take, as you say, six months to realise she was a scammer, a con artist? Oh, many reasons. One of which is that she was very good at what she was doing. You know, she was taking advantage of banks and hedge funds,

these institutions that have, you know, background checks and procedures in place to prevent fraud. And she was fooling them. So I think it's little wonder that she was able to fool me. I was her friend. You know, of course I trusted her. And I wanted to see the best in her. And I'm very lucky to have had so many healthy relationships in my life, which gave me this idealized view of friendship and of trust.

And, you know, thinking that this person had the best interests or the best, you know, the best at heart, I suppose. Hindsight's always a perfect science. Now, thinking back, where were the cracks? Not just the fact that she owed you this money, but her other friendships. What were the other things that you realized didn't add up? Yeah, I think she was very disconnected in many ways. I think she's sort of fundamentally unable to feel empathy for other people. I don't know that that's something I would have picked up on prior to having gone through this experience. I think if anything, it's more, you know, I found myself repeatedly trying to excuse her behavior and to rationalize it, even before Maricast.

Just she could be rude. She could be entitled. And I think the warning signs to me should have been that I was doing that so consistently. She was eventually arrested. You helped bring her to justice. Her case went to trial. She was found guilty of a number of charges, sentenced to a minimum of four years in prison, up to 12, and also faces extradition to Germany. But she was found not guilty, not criminally guilty in her actions towards you. Why? Oh, why is a good question. I was devastated by that because the evidence was there. I know what happened. Ultimately, the jurors

deliberated for longer than expected. And I, the prosecutors, there were two on the case, both called me and explained that sometimes, you know, since it has to be unanimous, if there's one juror holding out, they might split the proverbial baby. And maybe that meant my charge. I also think the jurors may have had questions about intent. And if Anna had scammed someone else out of millions of dollars, would she have paid me back? Maybe, that does that make her actions not criminal no no I hope you don't mind me saying this but reading the book I kept thinking how could you fall for this and how do you think she managed to fall not only you but so many people some people have speculated that this is a sign of New York's young socialite scene where people don't necessarily know their

friends backgrounds or surnames and what matters most is the nights out the places you're seen at the connections is that fair um no I mean it doesn't feel accurate with regard to me um and I can say that with certainty because I know that um I I think she was very convincing and she was likable and it's not unusual I'm sure in in cities like London, as with New York, to have friends who have more money than you or less money than you. It's unusual to meet someone who is such a successful imposter. You don't think that someone in your friend group who, you know, I knew her for over a year. You never expect that someone isn't going to be who they say they are. Or I certainly didn't.

And when we say that she wasn't who you thought she was, who was she? So she posed as a German heiress who had a trust fund and was due to inherit millions, tens of millions. She was actually? She was from Russia, from a modest background, anasoric and... No money. Not that I know of. There was also support for her, people wearing t-shirts supporting her people saw her as this sort of hero this anti-establishment hero who'd game the system there were free Anna Delvey t-shirts why do you think people came out to support her yeah I think it's a sign of our times I think

it's easier to be entertained than it is to actually delve into something and understand its nuance I think the headlines are splashy She's a young female taking advantage of these big systems and people are projecting this idea that she's taking advantage of the wealthy, which feels unfair given that I was living paycheck to paycheck. But I understand the desire to see a good story. You've written a book about your experience. Netflix is doing a film.

She signed a lucrative deal with them although last week the the attorney general said that Anna shouldn't profit from the story and needs to pay her victims back why do you think it's come to worldwide attention why are we so obsessed with this story well it's I mean I was gonna say it's like Gossip Girl but with a plot although I liked Gossip Girl, but with a plot, although I liked Gossip Girl, so I shouldn't knock it. I think, even though it's not necessarily how the reality of the experience went, I think there is a story that can be projected onto this experience that really seems to capture people's attention, given the fact that I'm sitting here in London and the BBC talking to you right now. I don't know. I don't know particularly what it is about her but i you know

i too found her charming while we were friends i get it that there's there's a story here worth exploring i suppose it's the catch me if you can yeah same same appeal as that story um have you become less trusting um i've become more aware of myself as a trusting person and in doing that i should will now pay attention to the times that I am rationalising things repeatedly for one person. And we'll look at that friendship and step back, or the relationship. That was Rachel Deloach-Williams. Some of your thoughts on Theresa May's legacy. This from Gita.

Any discussion of Theresa May that doesn't concentrate on her most toxic legacy, the hostile environment and its devastating impact on women, is quite useless. Philip says, Until this year, I've been a single parent for 15 years. Please don't make me laugh by repeating Theresa May's drivel about the just-about-managing and burning injustices. She instituted Osborne's savage cuts to benefits and in 2016, my already minuscule income was cut by £200 per month. I went from just

about managing to drowning debt. These cuts were targeted mainly at people who are single parents who of course are mainly women so has neither imagination or empathy. Tegwin, there should be far more women from the working or lower middle classes in positions of power so that the concerns of these women are given more prominence. It's not sufficient to have a token number of state educated women in these positions. And the final word goes to Michelle, who says, Justine Greening and Ruth Davidson, one from the north of England and the other from Scotland, are good examples of women from ordinary backgrounds who've made a mark in the Tory party, but they are on the periphery politically and geographically. Thank you for your messages and following on from this week's drama

we'll be discussing the sort of issues care workers face today that's on tomorrow's programme also young adult writers on teenage mental health and food writer Mimi A's new book Mandalay is a celebration of Burmese food, history and culture. I'm very happy to say Mimi will be in the studio to cook the perfect red prawn curry. Do join us then. I'm Sarah Treleaven, 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.