Nancy Astor was often criticised for making anti-Semitic and anti-Catholic remarks. She fell out with one of her sons when he married a Catholic and refused to attend his wedding. He retaliated by telling her he would not be attending her funeral. She was pro-appeasement towards Hitler in WW II. There was a suspicion that she was pro-Nazi, but after the war when a Gestapo list of 2,300 prominent people to be arrested after a successful German invasion of the UK, Astor’s name was on the list.
Mr Hancock gets most things wrong. Therefore no surprise that he got history wrong too. Nancy Astor was NOT the first female MP. She was the first female MP to take her seat.
100 years ago today, the first female MP, Nancy Astor, was elected to Parlt. The female @Conservatives candidates standing in this election are exceptional & I look forward to working with them in Parlt to achieve further progress on gender equality across our society.
— Matt Hancock (@MattHancock) November 28, 2019
1) No, the first female MP elected to Parliament was the Irish socialist Constance Markievicz.
2) Nancy Astor was an antisemite and a fanatical anti-Catholic bigot. https://t.co/WDwrSAZGrH
— Owen Jones? (@OwenJones84) November 28, 2019
https://twitter.com/ashconnor/status/1200049431221022720?s=20
So there you have it.
Douglas James
