Friday will be Theresa May’s 50th day in office. Forty-nine days ago, the Women’s Equality party set our new prime minister a challenge: our 65,000 members and supporters – left and right, blue and red – want her to commit to six achievable policies so that England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland can become the first countries in the world where all genders are equal.
Those goals – affordable childcare; sustainable funding for services working to end violence against women and girls; compulsory sex and relationships education (SRE); ratifying the Istanbul convention; ending the detention of asylum seekers; and equal representation of women in parliament – would change the lives of women and men across the UK. They would mean better politics, a more vibrant economy, a workforce that draws on the talents of the whole population and a society at ease with itself.
On Wednesday night the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn committed in principle – though not yet in detail – to the affordable childcare challenge we set him, while pledging his support for mandatory SRE in every school and a 50:50 parliament. In the coming 50 days the Women’s Equality party will continue to push Theresa May to match these commitments and to put women’s equality where it belongs, at the top of the agenda. The next 50 days offer huge opportunities for change, as the parties hold their conferences and MPs return to Westminster. Theresa May can change the gender balance in our country – and if she won’t, WE will.
Sophie Walker
Leader, Women’s Equality party
• I wish you would stop using the word “taxman” (Taxman needs bigger bite, 31 August). When I worked in HMRC about 70% of the staff were female. Maybe you should use the term “taxlady” instead.
Ian Arnott
Peterborough, Cambridgeshire
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