David Cameron is billed to speak at the AGM of Gingerbread, single parents, equal families, on Monday. I would imagine the meeting, to be chaired by “Guardian” columnist Madeleine Bunting, will prove lively, to put it mildly.
I am especially interested as I was Chief Executive of Gingerbread in the early 1990s. Although the organisation has since merged with the National Council for One Parent Families, I doubt if the nature of the Gingerbread membership has changed substantially. In my day Gingerbread women, and since 90% of lone parents are women, nearly all the members were female, were tough and feisty, fighting for a better deal for lone parents. Indeed the Gingerbread website states, “2009: The merged organisation [National Council for One Parent Families and Gingerbread] relaunches as Gingerbread. And as the political, economic and social climate around single parents hardens, a new episode in campaigning life begins………..”
To an interested outsider, and I am now more out than in, the decision to invite Cameron looks suspiciously like the new episode will lean towards the Tories. I would, however, caution Gingerbread against aligning themselves too far in that direction. Only a year or two before my stint as Chief Executive, Peter Lilley, the then Secretary of State for Social Security, quoted from Gilbert and Sullivan at the Tory Party Conference. Nothing wrong in that, you may think. Except that the quote, with words changed as necessary, was the “I have a little list” from the “Mikado”, and Mr Lilley was to put lone parents on this list, the list being the roll call of those who would be executed.
I wonder how much Tory attitudes have changed. Madeleine Bunting herself wrote a piece on “Guardian Comment is Free” on 29 November where she reported about David Cameron, “… when he recently appeared on the website mumsnet he was subjected to a collective howl of middle-England anxiety on everything from tax credits to free eye tests and choice of schooling. The subtext was, “how can someone of your background understand our lives?”
I’m afraid I will not be able to go on Monday, but I am fascinated as to how the meeting will go. What’s the betting Gingerbread will realise they have made a terrible mistake?
