Despite the blizzard of death threats and rape tweets, despite the far-right murder of Jo Cox and despite the intimidation and harassment around Westminster and in constituencies, more women than ever are standing in the election

As a result of a serious misunderstanding with a long-ago putative boyfriend about my enthusiasm for the theatre, I found myself at the London Palladium in 1968 listening to a “comedian” who was the warm-up act for Tom Jones. Barbara Castle was the Minister for Transport and it was only a few months after the introduction of the breathalyser test in what would prove, together with her policy for obligatory seatbelts, a means of reducing annual road deaths by about 75 per cent, as road traffic simultaneously increased by an unprecedented exponential. We didn’t know then how stunningly successful this political initiative would prove, but I still remember the shock I felt when I heard the stand-up declaim: “Now that Barbara Castle! There’s an old bag that needs blowing up!”

That was 50 years ago. Such a “joke” would never reach a script these days, let alone a public performance and if anyone did deliver a similar sentiment, even at a private event, the culprit would almost certainly subsequently be exposed online, and subjected thereafter to public humiliation. I’m sorry to say they laughed in the Palladium all those years ago. Alas! The rest of the evening is blurred by horror in my memory but, even though I didn’t take a note, I’ve never forgotten my outrage: as a young Fleet Street journalist with an interest in politics, and as a woman.