EYE OPENER
The inaugural event of The Women and Enterprise Group met in the week of International Women’s Day at the Palace of Westminster on 11 March. This was another great excuse for me to take my mini-camera on ‘walkabout’ on the way back to Waterloo to capture some of my favourite scenes on what was one of the last chilly winter days.
After running the gauntlet of what is now a very effective security system, it was great to join a long gallery room packed full of old friends, and some familiar political faces from the Commons and the Lords, like Virginia Bottomley, plus representatives from NatWest, and Lloyds banks. Vicky Pryce, Director-General, Economics, BIS & Joint Head, UK Government Economic Service addressed us over a superb breakfast, and it was an indication of the progress made by many of us in the room (and those friends absent) to champion the importance of women’s enterprise as being of strategic importance to UK plc.
CLICK HERE for Notes of Meeting of the The Women and Enterprise Group 11 March 2010.
Just as I was leaving I was stopped in my tracks to allow Speaker John Bercow file past into the Chamber with his retinue of flunkies. I caught his eye and as I winked he grinned, which shows that even a right wing member of the erstwhile Tory Monday Club has a sense of humour and irony.
Clearly with the starting gun on the General Election having gone off, the corridors of power in Westminster turn in and whilst the civil servants concentrate on the content of each of the main parties’ manifestos, we wait to see where women’s enterprise might emerge and in what form.
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