I didn’t catch David Cameron’s speech about our recently deceased former prime minister Margaret Thatcher this afternoon in the House of Common, but a supporter and generous donor, Gladys, emailed me the following:

David Cameron, in a speech in the House of Commons this afternoon, stated that Margaret Thatcher had ‘smashed through the glass ceiling’, or words to that effect. I almost dropped my cup of tea in disbelief at his feminist-friendly statement. Margaret Thatcher would have recoiled at the idea that any such thing as a glass ceiling existed. Nothing has been so damaging to female executives as the myth that a glass ceiling exists, or has ever existed. Talented and hardworking women have aways got to the senior reaches of business, and to the boardroom if good enough. The glass ceiling is a myth spun so as to justify driving poorly qualified women, often unwilling to work hard, into boardrooms. Many female executives today have an unbelievable sense of entitlement. The fact that almost all female FTSE100 directors are non-executives tell us all we need to know about the relative numbers of men and women qualified for FTSE100 boards.

I couldn’t agree more. Gladys’s email reminded me of one of Mrs Thatcher’s quotations:

I don’t want to get to a position where we have women in senior roles because they’re women, we want to have women because they are able and as well-equipped as men and sometimes better.

A remarkable woman, whatever you might think of her politics. Will we ever see her like again?