Angela Eagle on the Westminster patriarchy: 'they manoeuvre like mad and they trade favours'

When Jeremy Corbyn conducted his first Shadow Cabinet reshuffle, the Labour leader was criticised for appointing John McDonnell as Shadow Chancellor over Angela Eagle. Given that this meant the three ‘top jobs’ went to men, Corbyn faced cries of sexism.

Now in a talk on the patriarchy at the How The Light Gets In festival in Hay-on-Wye, Eagle has shed some light on why it is men are often picked for the top jobs overs members of the fairer sex. Eagle claims that men operate in a different manner to women and ‘manoeuvre like mad’:

‘Men organise in peer groups. I won’t say gangs, because that would be wrong. Maybe tribes. They manoeuvre like mad, in my experience, and they trade favours. This is a completely alien way of doing things for most women, who just get on, do the job and hope someone will recognise it.’