As the first woman to serve as president of the UK Supreme Court, Baroness Hale has become a significant figure. She has been called the “Beyonce of the legal world”, with her eclectic choice of brooches making her an unsuspecting fashion icon. But when she became the first woman judge in the House of Lords in 2004, her arrival was not met with quite such excitement.
Lady Brenda Hale, who is now Baroness Hale of Richmond, told Hay Festival audiences that she had discovered what her male colleague Lord Hope thought of her appointment upon reading his published diaries. “When I joined the House of Lords as the first woman judge, they all seemed to be extremely welcoming and friendly, these very, very bright, intelligent men – a bit scary, of course. But one of them later published his diaries.
He had been keeping a diary throughout his time, he’s now published five volumes. “His entry, just before three new lords turned up, he said: ‘X’ – the man – ‘will add to the sense of good humour along the Lords corridor. Y will become our man from Northern Ireland.
And Brenda will be a source of some anxiety.’” she revealed. Speaking on The News Review panel, an event in partnership with The Independent and chaired by chief book critic Martin Chilton, Baroness Hale confirmed that it was her feminist principles “that he was afraid of”.
Baroness Hale made headlines in 2019 when she ruled that Boris Johnson, the prime minister at that time, had acted unlawfully.