Women’s Parliamentary Radio election features for 2010

www.wpradio.co.uk

Women’s Parliamentary Radio

For immediate release

May 14^th 2010

Women’s Parliamentary Radio election features for 2010

Women’s Parliamentary Radio has completed its profile of the General Election of 2010 with three new features interviewing the newly elected women to Westminster, across party, and those in charge of election night itself.

This follows our profile of the four women PPCs who fought for one seat Brighton Pavilion – eventually won by Caroline Lucas of the Green Party! And our “exclusive” coverage of the Liberal Democrats hustings in Cambridge at the beginning of the year when the party selected a new candidate Julia Huppert from a gender balanced short-list. Julian went on to win Cambridge for his party.

The new faces on the block!

Helen Grant MP Conservative and Rushanara Ali MP Labour.

Helen Grant the Conservative MP for Maidstone & The Weald and Rushanara Ali the Labour MP for Bethnal Green & Bow are two of the new faces at Westminster. Helen is the first black female MP for the Conservative Party and Rushanara Ali is the first Bangladeshi MP.

They are two of the 142 women MPs in Westminster, an increase of 16, just 22 per cent of the total, and both have already compiled a “list” of the issues they will champion on behalf of other women and their constituencies. Boni Sones OBE, Executive Producer, spoke to them shortly after they attended a photocall in Westminster Hall of all the new faces.

Caroline Lucas, Green Party and the 2010 Election result for women

Congratulations to Caroline Lucas the first Green MP to be elected to Westminster for Brighton Pavilion and the only woman leader of a party in Britain.

Caroline is interviewed here by Anne Garvey and Boni Sones OBE for a special feature on her work.

There are now 142 women MPs in Westminster, 22 per cent of the total of 649, an increase of 16. The number of female Conservative MPs went from 18 to 48. Labour now has 81 women MPs, down 13, and the Lib Dems have 7, down 2. Congratulations to Labour’s first three Muslim women Shabana Mahmood, Yasmin Qureshi and Rushanara Ali and Chi Onwurah the first woman of African descent to win a seat. For the Conservative’s Helen Grant is the first black female MP, and congratulations too to Priti Patel, the daughter of a Ugandan refugee.

A Day in the Life of a CEO and Town Clerk on Election day

They’re off. It’s the day of the General Election and Antoinette Jackson is the Chief Executive of Cambridge City Council, one of a few women who run councils in Britain. She’s spent months planning the fine detail of getting voters registered, staffing the 42 polling booths and getting volunteers to count the votes after the polls close at 10 pm. The results will be declared about 2.30 to 3am in the morning. Accuracy, says Ms Jackson, is essential. And there’s local elections too. She spoke to our Executive Producer of wpradio.co.uk, Boni Sones OBE.

And eight-year-old Imogen Rodgers, has managed to read ALL the election literature that has come through her door. Boni caught up with Imogen at the Good Shepherd Church Hall.

The candidates in Cambridge were: Martin Booth, Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition; Peter Burkinshaw, UK Independence Party; Nick Hillman, Conservative; Julian Huppert, Liberal Democrat; Tony Juniper, Green Party; Holborn Old, Independent; Daniel Zeichner, Labour.

Four women PPCs fighting for one seat Brighton Pavilion!



PRESS RELEASE

www.wpradio.co.uk

Women’s Parliamentary Radio

For immediate release

April 26th 2010

Four women PPCs fighting for one seat Brighton Pavilion!

There’s one seat that in all likelihood is going to return a woman MP. Brighton Pavilion has four women PPCs contesting the seat and one man.

Linda Fairbrother our www.wpradio.co.uk reporter cycled off in search of these four women Prospective Parliamentary Candidates.  First she stood by the sea and talked to LD Bernadette Millam and then Nancy Platts for Labour, who is fighting to retain the seat for her Party who had a 35 per cent majority.

Linda then cycled up the hill to talk to Charlotte Vere Conservative, and Caroline Lucas, the Green Party Candidate and the Leader of her party, standing in a seat the Greens hope to win.

Nigel Carter is also standing for UKIP.

Nancy Platts Lab said: “Labour has done a lot for women, affordable child care, extended maternity leave, we have made a lot of difference to people’s lives.  People do forget what we have done, and when they complain about MPs expenses, I remind them about what Labour has achieved.

“When Gordon visited us last week children at the local school stood up to applaud him and at the seafront people were hanging over the railings to shake his hand, he got a warm reception. Gordon was one of the driving forces behind tackling child poverty and child care issues. Our policies on childcare, tax credits, extended maternity leave, work life balance policies, equal rights for part-time workers we have made a tremendous difference to people’s lives.

”I am very proud of the four women standing, I was a board member of Fawcett and the fact Millicent Fawcett used to live here; it is quite interesting that this is the place we have an all women line-up. The fact Labour had all women short-lists and got more women in has meant we have had more policies for women and these have made a big difference to a lot of women’s lives.

“The fight is between Labour and the Tories in Brighton Pavilion and people understand that, I am very optimistic that our vote is holding up.”

Charlotte Vere Cons said: “I don’t think anybody can claim they are winning Brighton Pavilion, who knows? On the door people still hold loyalties from previous times and I would say it is a three way marginal, Labour, Conservative and perhaps Green, but I would put them the least likely of the three.”

Bernadette Millam LD said: ”I don’t think the voters are thinking we have all female candidates here, they are just thinking who can do the best for them? Campaigning at the weekend the amount of support we are getting with whistles and car horns, we have never seen that before.

“People are thinking why not have a LD government, it will be the voters who decide at this election. People just want something different, they are worried about their jobs, MPs expenses and greedy bankers, these are the main issues here.

“ If you have something to offer that is what makes a difference, standing up for what you believe in and gaining people’s trust that is what makes a difference whether you are male or female, but usually women don’t have the confidence to do it, but if I can you can.”

Caroline Lucas Green said: “A win for the Greens is very realistic. In the local elections of 2007 we had more councillors than any other party, and in the European Elections of 2009 we got double the vote of Labour and 6,000 ahead of the Tories. An ICN poll in December put the Greens 8 per cent ahead of the Conservatives and 10 per cent ahead of Labour.  We have more councillors, people know our policies and they want to vote for them.”

Ms Lucas said Westminster needed more women in the “Mother of Parliaments”:

“I think the current political system is deeply off-putting for women, the leader debates with the three men wearing those dark suits and the primary difference being the colour of their ties! It is important to me as a woman at Westminster to stand up for some of the women’s issues, like childcare, public transport, the pay gap and more women in the boardrooms. Being more co-operative and less competitive is important. ”

Footnotes:

1. Wpradio.co.uk is a web based broadcaster supported by all parties. It has over 200 interviews with women and male politicians of all parties which can be listened to online or downloaded as podcasts.

1. In March 2010 monthly visits jumped to 3,847 visitors, and 73,796 hits. That’s over double the same period last year. Page views have increased by a corresponding amount. And February 2010 had the highest ever bandwidth usage with 120 Gigabytes downloaded.

1. Our web stats show that our visitors are loyal, they return, tune in for some time and to more than one item. We have doubled our audience in a year.

1. wpradio also carries international content and has interviews with women MEPs in Europe, and women politicians in Africa and the Middle East.

1. Our supporters include Harriet Harman MP, Theresa May MP and Jo Swinson MP and many other female politicians listed on our site.

1. The British Library archives all the interviews on wpradio.co.uk in its new web collection.

1. For more information contact Boni Sones OBE on 07703 716961.

End.

Vera Baird QC MP and Ann Cryer MP on Equality

NPG launch

PRESS RELEASE

 

www.wpradio.co.uk

Women’s Parliamentary Radio  

April 2^nd 2010

 

What they did for us! The Labour women’s fight for equality

The dissolution of Parliament brings to a halt thirteen years of a Labour government. It began in 1997 with Tony Blair and those historic 101 Labour women, many selected by the device of All Women-Shortlists. It meant in total Westminster had the highest number of women MPs ever, 120 and also Betty Boothroyd the Speaker.

This special two part documentary series looks at the Labour women’s achievements.

Vera Baird QC MP for Redcar talks to our reporter Linda Fairbrother, about the Labour women’s Equality Bill, which she has just steered through Parliament. It was a hard fought for piece of legislation that has eventually won the backing of all parties.

It sets out to create a fairer society for all combating discrimination on the grounds of age, disability, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity.

Ann Cryer MP for Keighley, who is stepping down from Westminster aged 70, has gained a reputation for plain speaking and doggedness. Her husband, Bob, was an MP and when he died she decided to stand too, she was then followed into Westminster by her son John, becoming the first mother and son MP team in Westminster.

Ann tells Executive Producer Boni Sones about her suffragette grandmother, the roots of her political passions, and her much acclaimed work on Forced Marriages and now first cousin marriages.

 

Vera Baird QC MP told us:

• “It has been a great privileged to have my hand on the tiller of this Bill, it has been extremely good. The purpose of it is to try to require those who discriminate not to have the situation as it is now, whereby people bring an action in a Tribunal, what we require now in the public sector and some of the private sector is that they must engineer out inequality. There is a major change of emphasis here, and I am pleased to be part of a process which I hope will change society’s  concept of how equality should be dealt with. “
• “We had unequal equalities in that you could discriminate in the sale of goods and services to somebody on the basis of their age but not race or gender. We needed to streamline and pull together the legislation that we have got already, we had passed a lot of legislation on race, disability and gender and more recently about age and sexual orientation too but they are all creatures of different ages, and we have now put them into a shape so that they fit together and that is more accessible. We have also made it a Plain English Bill so there is a straight forward explanation of the clauses and there is an Easy Read version intended for those with low literacy levels and with pictures too.”
• “This Bill is powerful stuff, make no mistake our Equality legislation has made a massive difference over the years, the pay gap has gone down, the employment gap between disabled an able bodied people has gone down, it is now about 25 per cent and the race employment gap has gone down into the low teens. Our legislation has worked but it has reduced too slowly and we have significantly beefed it up now.  If you put a duty on a public authority to reduce equality you are going to have them watched by all around them, and if they fail they will have to pay a penalty.”
• “We have wanted private sector employers to go along with it, and we have had an enormous amount of support from them. We started this consultation process three years ago with a discrimination law review, and there were 4,000 plus respondents, and we had the CBI, The Federation of Small Businesses, and The Engineering Employers Federation respond too. We also had a proper Public Bill Committee which took evidence, and I think this is why we have been able to engineer this to find acceptance wherever it goes. “
• “Equality is not just for the good times it is more important when times are oppressive. I think employers now understand that they don’t have a conflict between their business interests and the interests of their employees to be treated equally. The Bill will not drive some demand for a massive pay increase during a recession, this is not about some sort of madness, but represents the drive towards some stable equality imperative for the individuals in work who need to achieve what they are able to. As we come out of recession we need to use the skills of everybody, not be held  back by bigotry and prejudice. “
• “These rights have a very powerful economic resonance, but they are social rights too. It is about equality in our society, if society is more harmonious, more at peace with itself, we can make progress and proceed by consensus, we are creating a new social order.”

 

Ann Cryer MP told us:

• “Women do live different lives, we have more caring responsibilities, with children, parents, grandchildren, and I think women have an ability to juggle things, and I think because we can do that, it is vitally important we have that 52 per cent of the population represented in parliament to boost women’s issues that affect their lives. The Speakers’ Conference report is making a difference even now.”
• “The Labour Women in the party have championed maternity leave, the Sure Start scheme of childcare, flexible working, these have all been terribly important for women, and now we are getting a crèche here in 1 Parliament Street for MPs and staff who work here.”
• “I feel proud of the changes I have got in legislation about grooming of girls, about forced marriages, those things I shouted for and saw into legislation. I think it only worked because there were women in the Cabinet and on the back benchers. I think women should understand what the 13 years of this government has meant to women because women here have been shouting on their behalf. “
• “My real inspiration came from my paternal grandmother who was a member of the Women and Social and Political Movement in the Rosendale Valley, there was a real thrust for suffragettes in the NW from working class women. My grandma Diana Place, lived at Waterford, and was an active member there, and able to do this because she only had one child. My father was political too a member of the ILP and a pacifist, my mum was a Christian, so I participate in various Christian things too and my whole being is representative of what came before me in my family.”
• “I have not doubted the direction of this Labour government. We have done so much that is good, and that has made the things I disagree with more palatable. I have always argued, and for the past six years I have been a member of the Parliamentary Committee and I meet the PM with my five members every Wednesday at 2pm. We raise subjects with him that we are concerned about, often we are not popular with him but we do have our say.”
• “Many members of my constituency party agreed with me, and agreed for voting against the Iraq war. Nick Griffin, from the BNP stood against me at the last election, and that stimulated the doubters in my party to work for me, so we did very well in Keighley and I increased my majority at the last election, one of only two to do so.”
• “During My campaign against Forced marriages, it was suggested I was a racist and that did upset me. I was arguing to defend Asian women, but it was really quite difficult at that time, and then it became flavour of the month and soaps on TV were running story lines about it. I managed to argue with Tony Blair to make government time and it came into force 18 months ago. Around 100 women have now benefited from the Forced Marriage and Civil Protection Act. “
•  “I just get on with things, even last night I was working away doing two amendments on EDMs, I just get involved but I am not a workaholic, I do make time to enjoy my life. It was nice what was said about me when I said I was going to stand down, it was like reading my own obituary, but at the same time I said I wish they had said this five years ago, we have moved on a lot. I was a victim of the expenses saga, but I am now in the clear, and life has moved on. “
• “I hope I will be remembered as the person who persisted in arguing for ten years against the abuse of women who were being forced into marriage. I understood it because I was a good constituency MP and these women were coming to me week after week to allow me to deal with their situation.   We put a stop on the entry visas for husbands who were not husbands, and women have a far better chance of arguing their corner and resisting family pressure to marry now.”
• “My grandma, the Suffragette, would be pretty proud and agreeing with most of what I have done, but I think she would be suggesting how I might have done it better. She was like that!”

 

 Footnotes:

1. Wpradio.co.uk is a web based broadcaster supported by all parties. It has over 100 interviews with women and male politicians of all parties which can be listened to online or downloaded as podcasts.

 

1. wpradio.co.uk has generated 58,000 hits a month 500,000 in a year. Our web stats show that our visitors are loyal, they return, tune in for some time and to more than one item. We have doubled our audience in a year.

 

1. wpradio also carries international content and has interviews with women MEPs in Europe, and women politicians in Africa and the Middle East.

 

1. Our supporters include Harriet Harman MP, Theresa May MP and Jo Swinson MP and many other female politicians listed on our site.

 

1. The British Library archives all the interviews on wpradio.co.uk in its new web collection.

 

1. For more information contact Boni Sones OBE on 07703 716961.

End.

Listen to Lynne Featherstone MP and Baroness Williams on wpradio

PRESS RELEASE

www.wpradio.co.uk

Women’s Parliamentary Radio:

March 21st 2010

Lynne Featherstone tells wpradio.co.uk why airbrushing in advertisements should be banned and Baroness Williams of Crosby says more women MPs will help parliamentary reform

The Liberal Democrat:  “Real Women: The Body Image Debate”.

Two Liberal Democrat MPs, Jo Swinson  and Lynne Featherstone have launched a “Real Women: The Body Image Debate”.

Jo is the MP for East Dunbartonshire and Lynne the MP for Hornsey and Woodgreen. They believe that the constant bombardment of perfect images of women in the media are leading to all kinds of mental health disorders such as depression, anxiety, lack of self esteem, eating disorders to name but a few.

They are campaigning for adverts which have been “air-brushed” to be labelled as such. Their suggestions also include “health certificates” for models, and more sport and “image” education in schools. This campaign has won the backing of academics, doctors and clinical psychologists worldwide.

Our wpradio.co.uk reporter Linda Fairbrother brushed up her body image with a bike ride to the train station to interview Lynne. It’s a campaign we are supporting.

Here’s what Lynne told Linda:

• “It is everybody’s right to feel good about their body, this is a push back against the overwhelming power and the financial power of the beauty, diet, food and fashion industries which show us endless streams of perfect images that none of us can aspire to not even the models in the adverts. We are calling for honesty and transparency in advertising and that means labelling an ad where people have been digitally enhanced and more. …”

• “The LD campaign is backed by 40 academics, and there is a direct proven link with eating disorders, depression, anxiety low self-esteem and not living up to things that is having a wider impact on people’s lives. Many young people spend their formative years feeling bad about themselves and therefore that affects every area of their life and is saps their confidence, the need for conformity is terrible.”

• “You can’t change the world overnight and you can’t stop goods being sold, but we want to make sure they do it in an open and transparent way and talk about it. We have now brought together all these people from different walks of life and there are a number of people saying we can do better than this and we can feel good about ourselves.”

• “You just have to begin to bush it back. Debenhams are now using size 16 in their windows and when we say well done, that leads to good publicity for them. Drink driving was a cultural shift, and we have seen all sorts of shifts and that is what we are aiming to do to get to a tipping point.”

• “The labelling of airbrushed ads is quite complicated, the Advertising Standards Authority are not that interested, and Jo Swinson and I who are heading this campaign may have to go to Europe and rely on our colleagues there, because they have sway over the way some things are labelled. It is a matter for legislation but the real thing is the raising of this issue and turning a light on it, campaigning on it because that is political leadership.”

Asked about the report from the Centre for Women and Democracy that says: “The number of Liberal Democrat women MPs will probably remain static”, Ms Featherstone said she doubted that prediction:

• “This election is the one to watch, and I pay credit to Jo Swinson who is indefatigable and has done a lot of work in this area in training and mentoring and ensuring women have got into winnable seats. This election is the one to watch to see if these soft measures rather than the hard measure of a mechanism works. I would be very shocked if that were the result, I am optimistic.”

Shirely Williams, Baroness Williams of Crosby:

Rt. Hon. Professor Shirley Williams is Co-Founder of the Liberal Democrats and is a Member of the UK House of Lords, where she was Leader of the party from 2001 to 2004.  She is Professor Emeritus of Elective Politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and advises the Prime Minister on issues of nuclear proliferation. She has written many books and is regarded as an “elder stateswoman” of British politics.

Baroness Williams recently gave a talk to the “Institute of Government” on reforming politics after the expenses saga.   Here Linda Fairbrother, our wpradio.co.uk reporter, asked her why she thought politics was “broke” and how we could go about “fixing it”, including more women MPs in Westminster?

Here’s what Baroness Williams told Linda:

• “I am depressed by the level of anger directed at our present representative democracy mostly because of the expenses scandal and what I am trying to get at is how do we actually reform representative democracy, which I think is essential? We do need a powerful strong parliament but we have to make sweeping changes to get there.”
• “There is a huge change in the attitudes of deference towards MPs and I don’t think that is a bad thing. But the pendulum has swung ludicriously far and people now see MPs as being a gang of rogues. However, most people think highly of their own MPs and lowly of other MPs …and that means their own experience comes out better than that they get from the media.”
• “One of the things I liked about the old parliaments of the 50s and 60s is that you had people who were primarily something else…but what has happened more and more is that politics has become professionalised at an early age. Somebody becomes and intern…and then a candidate and sometimes even gets put into a safe seat, they don’t even have the experience of having to fight to be elected, and so when they become an MP they don’t have a sense of association or brotherhood with other MPs like themselves.”
• “A lot of the women we have in the House, came by way of women only selection. A lot of women were written down by that terrible caption of “Blair’s Babes” like a renaissance painting where the figure of God (Tony Blair) was surrounded by cherubs and none had any identity……that was terrible and it did dam them from very early on.”
• “I think it has to be radical reform, at one end the electoral system throws up too many safe seats, and they slowly die on you…. You need the charge of being able to change your MP and your government… and what that in turn means is that the parties don’t put resources in and they allow them to wither on the vine. “
• “One of the ways to deal with the problem of getting more women in, instead of very artificial things like women only selections… is the straight forward way to do it is to have bigger constituencies with men and women  MPs.  It will give you a totally different kind of Parliament, and stop being clubish and boozy and more serious and more linked to the public’s interest kind of parliament.”
• “In fairness to Gordon, who tends to get a very rough press, he has always respected the condition I put to him (when I became a government advisor) that I am going to continue to be a LD and I am going to continue to be free to criticise policy …and he has abided totally by that and he has never tried to put pressure on me to support government policy as a quid pro quo for being a government advisor.”

Footnotes:

1. Wpradio.co.uk is a web based broadcaster supported by all parties. It has over 100 interviews with women and male politicians of all parties which can be listened to online or downloaded as podcasts.

1. wpradio.co.uk has generated 58,000 hits a month 500,000 in a year. Our web stats show that our visitors are loyal, they return, tune in for some time and to more than one item. We have doubled our audience in a year.

1. wpradio also carries international content and has interviews with women MEPs in Europe, and women politicians in Africa and the Middle East.

1. Our supporters include Harriet Harman MP, Theresa May MP and Jo Swinson MP and many other female politicians listed on our site.

1. The British Library archives all the interviews on wpradio.co.uk in its new web collection.

1. For more information contact Boni Sones OBE on 07703 716961.

End.

Theresa May MP, co-founder Women2Win

February 15^th 2010

www.wpradio.co.uk new series “The Hustings”!

Theresa May MP, co-founder Women2Win

Theresa May MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and Shadow Minister for Women is contemplating an increase in the number of Conservative women MPs, should her party win the next General Election.

The numbers could rise from 18 now, just 9 per cent of the Parliamentary Party, to a possible 55 to 60, should the Tory Party get an overall majority.

This week another A List candidate, Joanne Cash in Westminster North, found themselves in the hot seat as she offered to resign amid a row with a senior local party member.

The Women2Win campaign was founded in November 2005 and the A-list was announced a month later, having first been suggested by Theresa May and Andrew Lansley in 2001. The roots of the Women2Win campaign pre-date Cameron but with the party leader’s conversion to All Women-Shortlists, following the publication of the Speaker’s Conference Report, the party is moving forward its progressive agenda. Research has shown that a women candidate can add 1 per cent to a party’s vote.

Boni Sones, Executive Producer of www.wpradio.co.uk spoke to Theresa May MP about the history of the Women2Win campaign, her aspirations for future women MPs, and the issues they would be likely to champion.

Theresa May MP told us:

• “I was a co-founder of the Women2Win Campaign with a number of others and the reason I did that was that we believed passionately in getting more women into Parliament and particularly more Conservative women MPs. We now have 18 women MPs and I think Parliament will make better decisions if it has a greater diversity of people and that includes the Conservative Party as well.”
• ”It is always difficult to be precise, but if we were to get an overall majority of one, we would probably have 55 to 60 in the House as opposed to 18 and that is  a step-change for us in the number of women in the House.”
• “I am pleased with the outcome (of Women2Win) I think we have done a great deal in the Party but I don’t think we can rest on our laurels. I think we have to continue the process of saying that we want to encourage more women to come forward, and then give them the support to get selected and then get elected in the seats they are standing for. “
• “Women2Win I am sure is going to carry on doing that important job. In the early days we were about bringing women in encouraging them to stand for politics, giving them training and sessions about what it was like being a politician but now we are working much more intensively to make sure women get selected.”
• “It sounds a bit grand when you say we were re-inventing politics. We have been trying to find new ways of doing politics and encouraging people to get  nvolved in politics. I think it is important  to change the politics to get people from this greater diversity of experience and background to be part of the decision making process as MPs. “
• “We ensured we were using the new technology in terms of emails in our campaign and to get outside London to places like Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Cardiff , Scotland . We went about saying “give it a chance” politics is a really good thing to do. Women wait for someone to ask them to get involved in politics and that is where Women2Win has been important. ”
• “We have had some fantastic women candidates who have also been part of promoting the campaign Margot James, Harriett Baldwin, Andrea Leadsom, the list could go on.”
• “I think one of the reasons why the Party had always tried to get the results it wanted without going down the route of All Women-Shortlists was because we wanted to make sure we changed the culture in the party. We wanted it to be natural for women to be selected and if we had AWS throughout the process it would have given the message that  this was something the centre had decided and wouldn’t have helped change the culture. It was important to do it in other ways early on and then as David Cameron said to the Speaker’s Conference recently  to have AWS at the end.”
• “David Cameron has continued to give the signal to people within the party that this is still an important issue. The Party may have thought you could take the foot off the accelerator and didn’t need to carry on and when David said to the Speaker’s Conference that we have some good women who have not been selected we will think about AWS it made people think perhaps more should be done.”
• “If we do win the Election some of the proposals we have come up with in opposition will be put into practice such as our overall strategy on violence against women and our flexible parental leave, which I believe would start to change the culture in the workplace. If the father has time off when the child is born then maybe employer’s will start to look at this differently, changing the culture there is very important and so is flexible working.”
• “There are some quite worrying figures about the impact of prison on women. Women go to prison for offences men might not be in prison for, we need to look at that as well.”
• “I am not somebody who naturally uses the phrase clear blue water, I think it is important that on a number of these issues there isn’t division (across parties), but on some other matters there is. Our flexible parental leave would give fathers more leave and give greater flexibility and choice to parents. The government has done quite a lot on domestic violence, but there is some evidence that it is not all working. We need to link violence against women together in a strategy across departments to realise its impact across government and not treat it as a silo issue which Labour has done.”
• “I certainly think the Women2Win campaign did put the issue out front and David Cameron did put this top of his agenda when he was elected to the leadership. I think the Party, over time, thought maybe this didn’t really matter because we had had Margaret Thatcher and Lady Astor. It has been a long process where the Associations have recognised that you need to look at the skills of the individual not look at the stereotype of what an MP is like.”
• “I haven’t had a discussion about the International Women’s Day debate yet, my work is about getting into government.  Those debates have proved very good over time, sometimes they go off on a party political tone, sometimes they are the most well argued and reasoned debates we have.”
• “I think that there is no doubt with a greater number of women in the House women’s issues have come to the fore, just look at the issue of violence against women which has been much more debated and addressed than it was previously. On the All Party Group on Human Trafficking, that is something where men are concerned as well. As politicians we embrace all issues, but the women are more likely to remember there is a woman’s angle to issues.”
• “I think it is important to look at what support can be given to women MPs when they come in, of course, we are likely to have a  larger number of women with small children than before. But I am very pleased we may get women like Helen Grant, in Maidstone, who came through the Women2Win route into politics and it will be very pleasing.”
• “As to the photograph I think the Blair’s Babes photograph came back to haunt the Labour women, people are coming up with all sorts of names about what the Conservative women MPs will be called, but I am sure we will mark the significant increase in the number of women MPs in a suitable way.”
• “Women2Win has taken determination to keep this issue at the forefront of thinking within the Party and as a priority. When David Cameron became leader the first thing he talked about was the need to change the face of the party and to have this greater diversity of people in Parliament and it was that impetus that really made everybody stand up and say this is something we have got to do. We have had to keep this impetus going for four years.”
• “You still get the odd noise-off where people don’t like what is happening, when people say they don’t like the idea of AWS because women will be second class citizens, I say we have had all male shortlists for a very long time and the men don’t think of themselves as second class citizens.”
• “I think the sad thing (about the 40^th anniversary of feminism this year) is there is still a lot of work to be done on issues like the gender pay gap and getting more women here into the Commons.”

A feature article on the foundations of the Women2Win Campaign written after it began reaching out to the regions in autumn 2006 can be accessed on our Home Page.

• Footnotes:

1. Wpradio.co.uk is a web based broadcaster supported by all parties. It has over 100 interviews with women and male politicians of all parties which can be listened to online or downloaded as podcasts.

1. wpradio.co.uk has generated 58,000 hits a month 500,000 in a year. Our web stats show that our visitors are loyal, they return, tune in for some time and to more than one item. We have doubled our audience in a year.

1. wpradio also carries international content and has interviews with women MEPs in Europe, and women politicians in Africa and the Middle East.

1. Our supporters include Harriet Harman MP, Theresa May MP and Jo Swinson MP and many other female politicians listed on our site.

1. The British Library archives all the interviews on wpradio.co.uk in its new web collection.

1. For more information contact Boni Sones OBE on 07703 716961.

End.

The Hustings! Women’s Parliamentary Radio talks to women MPs

NPG launch

January 18^th 2010

www.wpradio.co.uk new series “The Hustings”!

Women’s Parliamentary Radio talks to Claire Ward MP and Maria Miller MP on how women can get through their party “Hustings” in 2010

Women’s Parliamentary Radio continues its New Year series on “The Hustings!” with Claire Ward the Labour MP for Watford and Maria Miller, the Conservative MP for Basingstoke.

We are interviewing all parties on how they are encouraging women to become Prospective Parliamentary Candidates in the forthcoming election.

We have already spoken to Jo Swinson the LD MP for East Dunbartonshire in the same series.

All three interviews are now on http://www.wpradio.co.uk and an exclusive we secured at the recent Liberal Democrats Husting in Cambridge where three men and three women competed to be the next MP for Cambridge. The popular sitting MP David Howarth is standing down. We were live at the Hustings but you will have to listen in to find out who won.
The Hustings:

Claire Ward MP  Minister in Ministry of Justice team

Claire Ward, has been the Labour MP for Watford since 1997, one of the new 101 “revolution” of women who came in with that new Labour government, many on all women-shortlists although Claire was not one of these.  Just 24, she was the youngest ever Labour female MP and is now a Minister in the Ministry of Justice team.  She’s managed to juggle the job of an MP, with a new family, and ministerial responsibilities.

Claire welcomes the Speakers’ Conference report which wants all parties to do more to get women and ethnic minorities into Parliament. She tells Prospective Parliamentary Candidates it is a hard slog to get selected for a seat and that the job is “a way of life” but when you achieve success it is a “rewarding job”.  She applauds the planned new creche announced by Speaker Bercow but now says there needs to be further reform of the hours of the Commons.

She is proud of her government’s many achievements for women, which she says, still go largely unreported in a media which treats women MPs differently form male colleagues. Claire tells Executive Producer, Boni Sones:

• “It’s a tremendous privilege to do the job as a Member of parliament, but there is no doubting that being a Member of Parliament isn’t just a job, it is a way of life. It isn’t a nine to five job, it does take up a huge amount of time and personal time and that of your family. It is also incredibly rewarding being able to see what difference you can make, being part of legislative changes like the minimum wage but also on personal cases for your constituents. When you get the success – that is what makes it a really rewarding job.”
• “It was a revolution in 1997. I was elected not on an AWS,  there was a whole range of us coming in, but coming in with a large bulk of us meant we had the ability to do something collectively. I think the ethos of Parliament and the way in which it is operated has changed significantly in that time as well as the influence on government policy. You start at the very basic level when you come in and in 1997 there weren’t many facilities, the doors were marked “Members” and what they meant were men’s toilets, they just didn’t mean  “Ladies” and that applied in a whole range of facilities the showers, the simple things.”
• “The Labour government concentrated more in policy terms on women, childcare and women in the workplace, because they had so many women  who were able to argue the case for it as well as the many other things they were bringing into the politics of the new Labour government.”
• “We did it first, but I wouldn’t say job done. AWS are not in themselves a great thing to do they were a necessity in order to create a means to an end to show women can be good MPs. We need to ask how do we encourage a new politics, how do we make sure our Parliament is representative is it just about quotas or short-lists? The  Conservative’s are coming to this quite late because they have so few women and perhaps they are where we were in 1997. We need to change some of the politics to encourage much more diversity in our Parliament and the way in which we operate.”
• “I’ve had my children in the last Parliament, and I didn’t take six months maternity. I was in and out and back in three months, and continuing to breast feed my children as well, you have to find the way to make this balance.”
• “In the past I never supported the change in hours, I didn’t think you could have family friendly hours, and I have now changed my mind because there is a new politics. If you are going to have many more commuting MPs, and make changes the way expenses has shown the public want change, then we need to look at the hours too and have wholehearted reform.”
• “As for the crèche, I have campaigned for that too, it’s madness we have the bars and shooting range and not a crèche, and not for MPs but for the staff too. Any employer should be providing that. I am delighted Speaker Bercow took up the reigns to introduce a nursery for all staff and that will be a commercial project.”
• “If you want ordinary people you have to give that balance between the politics the parliament and people’s family. We have to change that attitude and get people in from all walks of life.”
• “It’s tough to get selected in a winnable seat as a candidate and then once you are the candidate you might have two or three years as a hard slog in order to win it. It is hard work, nobody expects it to be easy. I think there are things we can do to help people, we need to make politics more accessible and the balance with families and perhaps make politics more constituency based.”
• “I have never described myself as a Blair Babe, I don’t think it is an appropriate term. One of the things I did notice when I came in in 1997, is that the other young member of Parliament was a male colleague the same age as me and the media used to treat us completely differently in terms of reporting what I was wearing what I was looking like. That bias is hugely detrimental to what we are perceived to have achieved and I think we have achieved a huge amount in a society that dismisses what women have achieved and why we are there. “

The Hustings:

Maria Miller MP Shadow Minister for Family

Maria Miller, has been the Conservative MP for Basingstoke since 2005. As Shadow Minister for Women she has been championing a better work life balance for men and women and their families and says she would support a further reform of hours in the Commons. She thinks the planned new creche facilities announced by Speaker Bercow will benefit staff as much as MPs themselves.

Maria, who has a family and fought one seat in 2001 before being successful in Basingstoke, says the support of her husband and family was vital in helping her as a PPC to gain her seat, as well as helping her to bear the cost of it all.   She says the Conservative Party could increase its number of women MPs from 17 to over 50 in the next Parliament if the Conservatives get a clear majority and that its Leader, David Cameron MP has always wanted to see more women MPs in Westminster and in the government.

Maria thinks that some of the new women MPs could find themselves with ministerial responsibilities fairly quickly, she gained her Shadow Cabinet role after just six months in Westminster. She names Penny Mourdant, Margot James and Harriet Baldwin as candidates to watch. She told Executive Producer Boni Sones:

• “With an overall majority of one we’d have just over 50 MPs who would be female and that would be the first time we would have that many in Parliament and that would be a very exciting challenge for us.”
• “It has been an enormous priority of David Cameron, there is always more to be done, I think it would be unfortunate if we see the overall number of women drop in the next election but we have some very capable women candidates who are going to be joining the parliamentary party I hope and adding to parliamentary life.”
• “Penny Mourdant, Margot James, and Harriet Baldwin, all have tremendous experience outside. We have a powerful group of women coming in and I think they will really shout loudly in parliament.”
• “David Cameron made it clear we needed a more diverse group of people in parliament, not just women but people representing different aspects of our community in parliament, we have to find a way of making it work within the Conservative Party structure which is very decentralised.”
• “There is tremendous support for Women2Win within the parliamentary party, not just women but men as well. There is a real understanding we need to get more good women candidates in, not just getting more women selected but getting women to view politics as a career path.”
• “It’s hugely expensive for all candidates, men too, it’s difficult for everybody, it is a job that so many people want. We need to consider why women are not putting themselves forward for the job in the first case.”
• “I think you have to have a family that is willing to be in it with you, my family are all excited by politics and the job that I have including my seven-year-old son. I am fortunate my husband works full time and he picked up the bill while I was a candidate for two years. The Party does need to look at that.”
• “Certainly we all have to hit the ground running, I was put onto the front bench six months after being selected, I hadn’t been a councillor before and it was a very steep learning curve, and it would be steeper if we are in government. The women coming into parliament have very strong credentials and this is vital if we are in a fortunate position of forming a government.”
• “There are transferable skills from your life outside that you can bring into parliament, and I think it is important that people bring that experience into parliament and to be using it actively as quickly as possible.”
• “I totally support the reform of hours and I will do everything in my power to give voice to that. I’m not sure a crèche will help Members, it might help their staff, but many of our children are too old. We need to ensure we can balance family and work life better. It is a struggle it is difficult, as we move forward, if recesses become shorter there will be less time to get back in touch with your family during the recess and we need to ensure MPs have time to connect with their families during the working week too.”

End.

January 11^th 2010

www.wpradio.co.uk new series “The Hustings”!

Women’s Parliamentary Radio talks to Jo Swinson MP on how women can get through the Liberal Democrats’ hustings in 2010
The Hustings: Jo Swinson MP East Dunbartonshire.

Women’s Parliamentary Radio is beginning the New Year with a new series on “The Hustings!”

We are interviewing all parties on how they are encouraging women to become Prospective Parliamentary Candidates in the forthcoming election. We begin with Jo Swinson MP, for the Liberal Democrats’ who was the youngest MP in Westminster and who personally has done much to encourage women candidates. She gained her East Dunbartonshire seat in May 2005 when she was 25 and it was third time lucky for her.

Jo says the problem for the Liberal Democrat’s is not in the selection procedures, but in getting enough women to come forward. In Cambridge there are three men and three women, all local, going forward to the hustings on January 15th to replace the sitting MP David Howarth, who is standing down.

Jo is well known for her support of new media and was one of the first MPs to                                         use Twitter. http://twitter.com/JoSwinson.

Jo tells Boni Sones OBE, Executive Producer of www.wpradio.co.uk:

• David Cameron’s policy of promoting more women as PPCs is “all fur coat and no knickers as we say in Edinburgh”. “ I think you will find this is the case for Cameron’s support of All-women shortlists, he did it for a great headline…..but actually when you look behind it I am not sure there will be that many AWS in the Tories, they have not been selecting that many women in seats where MPs are standing down. Although they should end up with some more women MPs after the next election, they are not actually changing as much as David  Cameron would have you believe.”
• “1 in 7 of our MPS are women, but there are things to be optimistic about …at the next General Election about 40 per cent of our target seats have women candidates. Where LD MPs are standing down 4 of the 7 have selected women so although we are starting from a low base we have some good signs of success that look as if we will increase our percentage of women at the next election.”
• “Bridget Fox, in Islington South, Katy Gordon in Glasgow North, Sal Brinton in Watford, we have lots of women ideally placed to become MPs at the next General Election.”
• “With the LDs the way we win elections is not a simple calculation of swing to win, it depends on local circumstances and where we are strong.”
• “Where we have women going for seats in about 2/3^rd of the time the women get selected so the problem we have is getting enough women to come forward to be candidates.”
• “One of the biggest things is three or four times as many men are coming forward as candidates, there is still the three “C”s deficit, cash, child-care and confidence. I still get surprised when I go to schools when the boys ask the questions not the girls, girls need to be encouraged to speak out and make their voices heard.”
• “All-women shortlists have their place….but if you look at the facts and evidence it is not what is happening in the LDs, we are not getting enough women coming forward in the first place, but when they go for seats they are more likely to be selected. “
• “We need to get all political parties really proactive about going out and talent spotting and supporting great women candidates who perhaps haven’t even considered politics as something they might like to do. “
• “Whether you are a man or woman as an MP you are likely to want to be involved in your children’s upbringing…. I would be interested in looking at measures such as whether or not job-sharing could be something that works, or genuine parental leave. There are some radical things we could look at but I am not sure the House of Commons is ready for it yet. ”
• “My two top tips for political speaking, are if you are giving a speech in the Chamber make sure you are careful where you sit, so sit next to the microphones. And if you are giving a political speech take a deep breath and smile it helps you to relax as well.”

• Footnotes:

1. Wpradio.co.uk is a web based broadcaster supported by all parties. It has over 100 interviews with women and male politicians of all parties which can be listened to online or downloaded as podcasts.
2. wpradio.co.uk has generated 58,000 hits a month 500,000 in a year. Our web stats show that our visitors are loyal, they return, tune in for some time and to more than one item. We have doubled our audience in a year.
3. wpradio also carries international content and has interviews with women MEPs in Europe, and women politicians in Africa and the Middle East.
4. Our supporters include Harriet Harman MP, Theresa May MP and Jo Swinson MP and many other female politicians listed on our site.
5. The British Library archives all the interviews on wpradio.co.uk in its new web collection.
6. For more information contact Boni Sones OBE on 07703 716961.

All the latest news for the year end

me

For immediate release

December 18th 2009

http://www.wpradio interviews of 2009!

Fiona Mactaggart MP – changes the laws on prostitution and wins an Emma Humphreys Memorial Prize

and

The Ann Treneman Diaries “Annus Horribilis: The Worst Year in British Politics” 2009

Fiona Mactaggart, the Labour MP for Slough, has campaigned and succeeded in changing the laws on prostitution.

It was at 11pm on 3rd November 2009 that Fiona watched the House of Lords pass Clause 14 of the Policing and Crime Bill. It will make it illegal for a person to pay, or attempt to pay, for sex with a woman, or man, who is subject to force, coercion or exploitation.

It begins to put the responsibility for prostitution onto the purchaser, who has a choice, instead of a seller who often does not. It was one of the most significant changes in politics of 2009 and was in danger of being voted down.

Fiona has won a special prize in the Emma Humphreys Memorial Prize for her work and  is Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Prostitution and the Global Sex Trade and co-Chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party Women’s Committee.

Fiona tells how she worked with others in her party, Harriet Harman MP, Jacqui Smith MP, and men too as well as women across party to achieve this change. It was first spoken of by Mary Wollstonecraft in  “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman” in 1792.

Fiona told Boni Sones how she “reached for the stars” and succeeded. She says:

• “I remember telephoning Jacqui Smith MP, the then Homer Secretary, and said I am planning this campaign is it alright with you? She said she was on the beach.  I always imagined she was on an exotic beach, in fact she was in North Wales, and she said “OK go ahead” and that was the trigger for me to get a law similar to the Swedish law passed.”
• “Finding people to stick up against their party line was important.  For the fist time I met a member of the Conservative Party, a Baroness, who did realise it was an issue of conscience and this Baroness went and told her whips this. This was critical. There just wasn’t enough people to back the LD amendment so it went through.”
• “At the time I thought this amendment was a step beyond what we could achieve  right now, but you have to reach for the stars because then you get them. Change never happens by accident, change happens when you try to reach for the stars.”

The Ann Treneman Diaries “Annus Horribilis: The Worst Year in British Politics” 2009

Matthew Parris has called it “brilliant” and Women’s Parliamentary Radio wholeheartedly agrees.

Ann Treneman, the sketch writer for the Times, reads from and reviews her new book. Boni Sones, Executive Producer of www.wpradio.co.uk joins in. The book puts the years most turbulent events in politics into Ann’s very own side-splitting perspective.

Thanks to Ann for allowing us to broadcast these special readings. She tells us:

• “It was the publisher’s idea. It is actually a portrait of the year. I picked the sketches that told the story of the year, not the ones I liked the most. I picked the ones that I feel created a picture of what it was really like. I think people will want to know how bad it really was!”
• “Looking back at the sketches I loved it when Gordon thought he was leader of the World, but I remember thinking when Joanna Lumley seemed to be in charge, that the government had lost it. Then there was the stuff about MPs expenses, it was all too good to be true; I felt so lucky it was true!”
• “There is such an organisation as the “Volupts”. It’s a real group of Labour woman, part of the sisterhood in the Commons led by Harriet. I don’t know what they do, probably they have shadowy meetings and cups of tea at which they plot sometimes.”
• “I think woman are not ridiculed more than men but they may be ridiculed differently. Often women’s voices are screechy and not quite on the right register and they do sometimes sound like fishwives, that is a fact.”
• “When you write a sketch watching body language is important. If you look at Gordon on YouTube and his expenses announcement video, the way he looks is bonkers, it tells a lot about someone.”

For immediate release

December 1^st 2009

www.wpradio.co.uk talks to Chloe Smith the  MP for Norwich North

Chloe Smith, the new MP for Norwich North is now the youngest MP in Parliament after being elected in a by-election in July this year. At 27 she is two years younger than the previous “baby of the House”, Lib Dem Jo Swinson, but Chloe insists: “If you are good enough you’re old enough the age isn’t the thing!”

Chloe describes herself as a Norfolk girl “through and through” and whilst a candidate for 18 months she was an energetic local campaigner. Her mentor was Baroness Gillian Shephard of Northwold, a former Norfolk MP and minister, and Chloe says she herself has mentored other potential candidates through the Conservative’s Women2Win Campaign jointly led by the Rt Hon Theresa May MP.

She’s already given her Maiden Speech, on further education in her constituency and although she says she isn’t a fan of positive discrimination she does want to see women supported in their attempts to gain seats.

Our reporter Linda Fairbrother secured a special interview with Chloe, but first she visited Cliveden House now in Berkshire the former home of the first women MP to take up her seat in Westminster the Conservative Lady Nancy Astor where she spoke to Annette Scudamore a National Trust guide.

Chloe tells Linda:

• Asked about the difficulties of getting selected as a candidate Chloe said: “I had a standard election procedure and I get embarrassed when the selection procedure becomes the news items…I enjoyed the whole procedure and got on well with the people, you have to find a candidate who fits the seat; we all work together and you can’t shoe-horn that relationship if it works it works and in some cases you have to accept if it doesn’t it doesn’t. My experiences were positive on the whole and I enjoyed the whole procedure and got on well.”
• Asked about who helped her most Chloe said: “Gillian Shephard has been a role model for me, she was formerly my MP and she is very supportive of people trying to get into politics as a former MP and minister herself. It’s incredibly important to have role models.“
• Asked about the Women2Win campaign Chloe said: “The Women2Win campaign is a very, very good idea, I’ve been part of that training and mentoring and helping other people.”
• Asked about her age Chloe said: “My ambition is to be a very good MP, I’ve achieved this great honour at a very young age, I’m getting on with it, it’s a challenging job, if you are good enough you are old enough.”
• Asked about David Cameron’s plans to parachute more women into Parliament Chloe said: “I’m not a fan of short-lists and quotas personally. I very much respect David Cameron looking at that as a tool, but I would much rather that we continue to use the tools of helping women to improve, after all as a Conservative I am a meritocrat and that is what I think we should be looking to do in our own party procedures.”
• Asked about the controversy over the selection of Liz Truss Chloe said: “I grew up in the SW Norfolk Seat so it’s quite close to home ..and all’s well that ended well …they have reaffirmed their choice in Liz Truss  and I have every confidence that she will go on to be a fine candidate and I hope a fine MP.”
• Asked if she now felt part of the sisterhood in Westminster Chloe said: “I do prefer to get on with the job. …As an MP I represent 70,000 people and I get on with doing it, …the world has a wonderful range of people in it and it is our job as an MP to represent all of them.”

Chloe ended the interview by telling Linda of how she had left some papers in the ladies loo in Westminster and when rushing back to retrieve them the thought struck her that she needn’t worry because “there are so few women in Parliament that the statistical chance of someone picking them up was quite low.”

Catching up with news of www.wpradio.co.uk latest.

NPG launch

 

For immediate release

November 9^th 2009

www.wpradio.co.uk talks to Baroness Margaret Prosser, Deputy Chair of the EHRC on equal pay and the city and finds out how parliamentarians have been helping VSO abroad

Top of Home:

Baroness Prosser, Deputy Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission

The Treasury Select Committee is spending the autumn asking prominent men and women in banking, finance, politics, academia  and the fields of equality, what their views are on whether a so called “Lehman Sisters” approach could have helped avert the financial crisis in the City.

 

The Committee is looking at how many women are in senior positions in major financial institutions, how widespread is the glass ceiling, pay inequalities, flexible working, and sexism in the City. One of those to give evidence was Baroness Margaret Prosser, Deputy Chair of the EHRC.

 

Our reporter Linda Fairbrother caught up with her and asked what she told the Committee?

 

Baroness Prosser said: “The collapse of the banking system was so dramatic, maybe with a good mixture of women it still would have happened, but there is evidence to show that if you have a mixed workforce men and women together then behaviours are modified,.. ….women are much more thoughtful much more grounded and so that mixture makes people check their behaviour.”

 

Baroness Prosser also spoke on the gender pay gap in the City, which stretches to a massive 80 per cent in some cases, saying the long hours are an issue for women.

 

“At the high earning end of financial services the employment is hugely male dominated, the age range of people operating at that high earning end goes from around 25 to 39, when women will be stopping to have children, and that is the time they want people to work all hours, so that is not suitable for women, and that alone shifts the emphasis and creates a pay anomaly.”

Top of International:

Baroness Jay and Laura Moffatt MP help VSO tackle global poverty

Baroness Jay of Paddington and Laura Moffatt the Labour MP for Crawley have both done stints working as volunteers for VSO in  a bid to help tackle global poverty.

VSO is the world’s leading independent international development organisation that works through volunteers to fight poverty in developing countries.

Baroness Jay was among six parliamentarians to participate in the Parliamentarian Volunteering Scheme this summer, where they helped to advise community organisations on matters relating to advocacy and campaigning. In South Africa Baroness Jay ran a workshop on reducing the burden of HIV and AIDs care on women and girls. Last summer former nurse Laura Moffatt MP spent three weeks immersed in the health system of Sierra Leone, the poorest country in the world.

 

Linda Fairbrother spoke to them both with Katy Peach, Policy and Advocacy Manager at VSO.

 

Baroness Jay said: “The VSO project was extremely worthwhile, it is very short term, but it is extremely important. …..I must confess I have spent a great deal of time in Southern Africa, ….it wasn’t really a matter of being surprised but confirming some of the impressions I had before, but it was encouraging because from the people I met and spoke to I saw what changes are helping in Southern Africa.”

 

Laura Moffatt MP said: “It has been one of the most important things I have done it’s not only the experience of three weeks in Sierra Leone, either talking to ministers or  working with patients, …but it has since led to lots of contacts with different people. As a former nurse we are now empowering the nurse organisations there, so it is giving them some heart to put back into the profession of nursing values to make sure they are a powerful group and have something to say.”

 

For immediate release

October 13^th 2009

Penny Mordaunt and Helen Whatley two PPC’s for the Conservative Party – say they plan to “win” their seats

Penny Mordaunt, is the Conservative’s prospective parliamentary candidate for Portsmouth North at the next general election. Helen Whatley is the Conservative’s prospective parliamentary candidate for Kingston and Surbiton.  It’s the first time Helen, a consultant in healthcare, telecoms and the media, and a mother of a young son, has stood as a candidate, and she has to defeat a Liberal Democrat.  Penny, a media consultant, stood before for the same seat in the 2005 election which was won by Labour.

 

Penny and Helen say they are getting a warm reception on the doorstep and that so called “door knocking” to get the vote out is hard work but rewarding. But, they reveal, it’s the recession that is top of people’s priorities alongside schools and hospitals.

 

Both admit they have little time to go shopping for those “colourful” jackets women politicians wear to get spotted.

 

Boni Sones, Executive Producer of http://www.wpradio.co.uk spoke to them at the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester where they sung the praises of the Women2Win campaign and the Rt Hon Theresa May MP the Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and Shadow Minister for Women for the support they have been given.

 

Penny said: ”When we go door knocking I am getting a really positive reception, people are in a difficult place and you hear some really sad stories. Over the summer we surveyed 10,000 people and we didn’t speak to anyone who hasn’t been affected by the recession. What you hear on the doorstep can be quite worrying, but Cameron is keen that we offer practical help too, as well as developing our policies for when we are in government. “

 

Helen said: “It seems a strange thing to do to go door knocking for votes, but we get a pretty good reception and people are really glad you have made the effort to find out what their concerns are.”

 

Penny said crime, anti-social behaviour and health were all issues on the doorstep while Helen said education could be added to that list.

 

Helen continued: “There is no doubt we have to put in a lot of hours as a candidate, and I have a job and a family too, but we are fighting to win, and having a job as well means at least we have a normal life as well as a political one.”

 

Penny added: ”We spend every hour god sends working in the constituency and I have a full time job as well, holiday time is spent working for our communities. I go shopping for clothes just twice a year.”

 

Helen said: ”I don’t think of myself as a politician but as someone with a normal job who is trying to make the Country a bit better.”

 

Both agreed the Women2Win campaign had supported them. Penny said:”Women2Win has been tremendously successful, and the Conservative Women’s Association has helped to. If we do win at the next election I hope I will be part of a powerful group of women advocates in the House who will work together as the Labour women did, to get behind particular issues of importance to women in the Country. “

 

 

Helen said Women2Win had provided support and  “someone to talk to, and to help with everything.”

 

She added that like Penny, wearing the right clothes was important as a woman candidate:” I was told to wear a colourful jacket and I do, being short, it helps me to get noticed but like Penny I have no time to go shopping now.”

 

For immediate release

September 25th 2009

Antonia Cox PPC for the Conservative Party for Islington South and Finsbury – tells www.wpradio.co.uk how she plans to win the seat from Labour

Antonia Cox , the official Conservative Party candidate for Islington South & Finsbury at the next General Election, says she is “ready to go” to take the seat from Labour’s Emily Thornberry MP who has a majority of 484 votes.

Antonia is a school governor, local campaigner and mother of three from central London. She is a leader writer for the London Evening Standard and author of the Policy Exchange publication, “The Best Kit”, which makes the case for better support of our armed forces.

Antonia recently went to Tunisia with the Conservative Women’s Organisation, one of the most advanced Muslin countries in the World in respect of women’s rights to look at what women bring to political and economic development there.

Antonia tells wpradio.co.uk journalist Daisy Ayliffe, how she has been juggling her career, her political life here and abroad, and her family.

“Tunisia has a higher percentage of women in Parliament than we do, and they have also got very high levels of participation in the economy, in teaching and in the police. I think a lot of people would say about Muslim countries that there are few opportunities for women but Tunisia is different.

“We are going to have to look at institution building in Afghanistan and it is helpful to  look at the civil society institutions like they have in Tunisia, which has some interesting examples of how you can increase women’s participation in politics.”

She also told Daisy that she was getting a good reception on the doorstep and that the hours of Westminster did not daunt her:

 

“I just talk to people and it is immediately possible to show them you care about the issues and that is why you are in it. People like me are new to the game, we are the people who are going to do it differently and I think people respond to that, and they do respond when you talk to them about the issues they care about, and I haven’t found too much of a problem.”

On the issue of an MPs’ workload Antonia commented: “I think we need to have a bit more of a debate about what is reasonable to expect of an MP organising their time in Westminster and where their constituency is and their family life. “

She went on to say she was optimistic of victory: “I am not scared I am ready to go and I have a lot of useful experience to bring to the job and I am not intimidated by that. I think that it is a fantastic opportunity and it is a very great honour and I will get cracking.”

Antonia told Daisy she thought that the new Conservative women on the back benches after the next election if the Conservative party wins would be good at the job:

“There are going to be some very able new Conservative women on the benches and some new faces. I think they are going to do great things, I feel very confident about that.

“There are a lot of challenges of getting selected and campaigning and how much of a time commitment that is, people need to know that it is all voluntary work no-one is paying for it, people have high expectations of you, but you can manage all of that.

“I think there are some great women who have had all of that experience and they will be in Parliament. I think they are going to show the men a thing or two.”

www.wpradio.co.uk International talks to Philippa Reiss-Thorne Managing Director of Gone Rural in Swaziland

Philippa Reiss-Thorne the Managing Director of Gone Rural in Swaziland tells Executive Producer of www.wpradio.co.uk Boni Sones, how her social enterprise has tripled the wages of the women who work with it.

Philippa is a 30-year-old social entrepreneur with a mission. She leads a community of 700 women from 13 different communities throughout Swaziland, marketing and selling their Fair Trade products all over the world and to top fashion designers and stores.

These rural communities now find themselves under more financial pressure than ever, having to pay for transport to clinics, school fees and to support more children.  80% of their women rely on Gone Rural as their sole income; each woman supports an average of 8 dependents; 82% of their husbands and partners are unemployed. Although extremely poor by western standards, these families will often take in neighbours children who have been orphaned by HIV/AIDS.

Boni Sones spoke at length to Philippa about Gone Rural, its ethos and how it had managed to treble the daily wage of the women who work with it in just three years. You can find out more: http://www.goneruralswazi.com.

Philippa said: “I have been managing directing the business since 2007 and during that time we have tripled the income of the rural women, and increased our sales by 15 per cent per year, product development is critical to our business.”

She continued: “Everything is connected. The women and their families have a beautiful culture, and we hope we can preserve that part of their culture but grow and develop and improve the parts of their lives that will contribute towards their sustainability.

“We have the Western values of Fair Trade in Gone Rural, but we don’t really have a hierarchy we are supporting each other and that is how we are really going to grow and develop. We welcome visitors and you can stay in a bed and breakfast near where we are working in Swaziland if you come and visit us, it is a beautiful valley.

“Next year we want to improve the women’s income, and we want to focus on our social programmes. We want to expand our mobile clinic to our other communities, we have water we are putting in a community, we have literacy programme we want to expand, so there is a lot of work to be done.”

Mrs Sherry Ayittey, Honourable Minister for Environment, Science and Technology, Government of Ghana

There’s still a lot of work to be done if the world is to reach agreement on reducing greenhouse gas emissions in Copenhagen in December when the G20 countries meet.

But while politicians prepare for the UN “Road to Copenhagen”  talks, academics from all over the World met at Cambridge University to look into the impact of climate change on water resources in Africa.

“The Global Water Initiative, Implications of Climate Change and Variability on African Water Resources” conference heard from keynote speaker Mrs Sherry Ayittey, Honourable Minister for Environment, Science and Technology Government of Ghana.

A Bio-Chemist by training Mrs Ayittey, believes the issue of water resources is one of basic “human rights” and that in this inter-connected world the developed world needs to embrace the problems the developing world is facing.

In speaking up for the voice of the voiceless Mrs Ayittey says that with “trust” in each other we can work towards a dialogue of understanding in Copenhagen.

Thanks to Judge Business School for allowing us to broadcast this podcast.

 

Lyn Brown MP – says why she loves libraries!

PRESS RELEASE

www.wpradio.co.uk

Women’s Parliamentary Radio

For immediate release

July  31^st 2009

Lyn Brown MP – tells www.wpradio.co.uk what she’s reading this summer and why she loves  libraries!

Lyn Brown, the Labour MP for West Ham since 2005, is a passionate champion of the library movement. From the time her mother took her to a London library as a child she confesses to having “wolfed down” books of all kinds and to having been “radicalised” by them.

She is Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Libraries, which is due to publish a report on modernising the service in the autumn and an assistant Whip.

The novels which have changed Lyn’s life include: “Gone with the Wind” by Margaret Mitchell, “To Kill a Mocking Bird” by Harper Lee, and now she’s poring over her summer holiday reading which will of course include “A view from the Foothills” by her colleague Chris Mullin.

Her mother worked as a packer in an icing sugar factory, but she taught Lyn that reading was the best way to “improve” yourself, and that’s just what she’s done, now as an MP in a neighbourhood near to where she grew up:

“On the very fist day I got here I was asked to Chair the APPG on Libraries. I have done libraries all of my political life and it really stems from when I was a very small child, my mum used to take me to a local library daily where I would wolf down the books that were offered to me. I loved that library, and when I became a councillor in Newham I wanted to give them a better service.

“My mum and dad were really keen that I would have new options open to me and they knew I needed to read and to embrace education. My mum worked on the icing sugar factory packing floor, and when she left school she was offered two careers; to cut hair or to become a seamstress and for my sister and me the library was part of our offer.”

The first books Lyn read were Enid Blyton:

“My mum brought for me 80 Enid Blyton books when I was young. My eureka moment was “Gone with the Wind” and it was the bit where Scarlett went home by herself and I realised Rhett Butler wasn’t going to take her home after all, so  I thought maybe I need to do this for myself.”

Asked  by Boni Sones, Executive Producer of Women’s Parliamentary Radio, if “To Kill a Mocking Bird”, influenced her to become and MP and stand up for people, Lyn replied: “I first read it when I was 16, the BNP was becoming very active in my area, and for me it told my story of how it should be for people like me and helped me to understand that standing up was one of the things I had to do. I was 16 in Lewisham, standing up and terrified.”

Lyn believes libraries are modern places: “The children I represent, many of them are very poor, and the library gives them the opportunity to understand there is something bigger than who they are and where they are and it gives them hope:

“The libraries I go to in my own constituency and elsewhere are social hubs, vibrant places, networking places, they are places where our children learn, they are places where adults learn, they are a hub, they are not the “hushed” society that they once were. Vibrancy is what is keeping the library movement alive.”

However, Lyn admitted that in the past libraries have been viewed as “dangerous” places: “They were seen to be places that fermented revolution; if you gave working people all this knowledge they might use it to challenge their social status in life. I think it is wonderful “go to your library and have a revolution”, I think it is fabulous.

“Libraries take working class kids and it gives them a direction, also adults, it gives them self improvement and opportunity, I still see libraries as radical places.”

Lyn talked of how libraries helped to integrate communities and were used by immigrants:

“Libraries are very safe places for people from communities across the world to come to. They can participate in a library without the paraphernalia of the state and wondering if they have the right to be there. It unlocks doors and makes people really comfortable. The libraries are gateways not only to these world’s outside of the world in which we live but also to our own world for visitors and guests.”

She admitted that libraries can also be “secret places” for people: “It is a secret place you can be with a book, and libraries are first steps for many people, and I am sure there are other MPs for whom the library was a central point of their education.”

Looking to the future of Libraries Lyn said they could very well be different things for different communities: “Libraries need to be central to communities, in my area in West Ham there will be people needing something different from elsewhere. People need quality materials and to have access to IT, as well as enjoying a welcoming experience to all who want to enter. A library catering for an older community may be different from one which has a younger community but the core values should be the same. It should be a learning opportunity and resource for all, that is what a library should be.”

Lyn said she had picked 8 books for her summer reading: “The life and death of Anne Boleyn”, by Eric Ives and “A View from the Foothills” by Chris Mullin, were two of the eight.

She believes that libraries should be careful not to stereotype the readers they serve and pointed to a personal illustration to prove the point:

“I passed my books when I did my literary degree to my mum who passed them round the icing sugar factory floor and what they loved was George Gissing. I opened up Gissing for them, the stereo-type of what the library was buying for them it  was just dreadful; Barbara Cartland and worse, but they loved Gissing, Dickens, the Brontes’, Austin.

“I also have a four-year-old niece and I have given her a library since she was born, I am careful  what I buy her my favourite is “Something Else” by Kathryn Cave. It is about an alien liking another alien and I still believe in the power of the books and the power of reading.”

Lyn says she still prefers books to the internet: “Books are really sexy things: I much prefer to open a book then read from the internet, but the content is what  takes us to the place that we need to be.”

Lyn’s interview can be listened to on www.wpradio.co.uk Home Page.

www.wpradio.co.uk is also showcasing the best content of the year so far with our “Pick of the Summer” listening:

John Bercow MP Speaker of the House of Commons

The Conservative Speaker of the House of Commons the MP for Buckingham John Bercow is a supporter of human rights and women’s rights internationally.  Mr Bercow sits on the International Affairs Select Committee and chairs a committee looking into Genocide. Prior to his election to Speaker, Boni Sones asked him why he has championed women’s rights here and internationally with such commitment and passion.

Anne Begg MP, Deputy Chair Speaker’s Conference.

Anne Begg, the Labour MP, for Aberdeen South, is Deputy Chair, of the specially convened “Speaker’s Conference”, which has just reported on how to improve the representation of women, minority ethnic people and disabled people in Parliament. Anne Begg is the first permanent wheelchair user MP in parliament. She is interviewed by Georgie Hemmingway.

Is Margaret Thatcher the “Mother of the Nation” or the “Monster from the Blue Lagoon”?

The Cartoon Museum in Bloomsbury, London, featured work by Steve Bell, Gerald Scarfe, Trog and many others for newspapers and magazines across the political spectrum. The cartoons reflecting Margaret Thatcher’s  11 years in power, were chosen by Steve Bell of the Guardian and one of her former trusted ministers, Lord Baker of Dorking.

The Million Women Rise Coalition

WP Radio joined 6,000 women on a march with The Million Women Rise Coalition through London to celebrate International Women’s Day 09 to violence against women in all forms. It is narrated by Seema Malhotra of the Fabian Women’s Network.

International:

Dawn Butler MP first black woman Minister

As one of only two black women MPs in Westminster and the first black woman Minister, Dawn is at the forefront of championing equal rights in Britain.  In this special 30 minute documentary podcast, Boni Sones spent a day with Dawn and other Parliamentarians on the very day that Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States of America.

Jo Swinson MP Britain’s youngest MP

Britain’s youngest MP Jo Swinson interviews Malalai Joya, the youngest person in the Afghanistan Parliament.

Footnotes:

1. Wpradio.co.uk is a web based broadcaster supported by all parties. It has over 70 interviews with women and male politicians of all parties which can be listened to online or downloaded as podcasts.

1. wpradio.co.uk has generated 58,000 hits a month and our web stats show that our visitors are loyal, they return, tune in for some time and to more than one item.

1. wpradio also carries international content and has interviews with women MEPs in Europe, and women politicians in Africa and the Middle East.

1. Our supporters include Harriet Harman MP, Theresa May MP and Jo Swinson MP and many other female politicians listed on our site.

1. The British Library archives all the interviews on wpradio.co.uk in its new web collection.

1. For more information contact Boni Sones on 07703 716961.

End.

Lynne Featherstone MP promotes equality for job applicants

For immediate release

NPG launch

July 17^th 2009

Lynne Featherstone MP promotes equality for job applicants with the “no name” application form

Lynne Featherstone the MP for Hornsey and Wood Green and the Liberal Democrat’s Equality spokesperson, has tabled an amendment to the government’s Equality Bill calling on names to be taken off job application forms.

The Solicitor General, Vera Baird MP QC, who is leading on the Bill in the House, has indicated that the amendment is likely to be accepted in due course despite opposition from some quarters. She said they were looking into the research that had been conducted on this particular issue.

Lynne Featherstone MP told Women’s Parliamentary Radio that the original proposal came about because two of her interns with the family names of Hussain and Patel had spoken to her of their inability to get through the job recruitment process.

Lynne told Executive Producer of www.wpradio.co.uk, Boni Sones, that she was optimistic that her “Featherstone” amendment would succeed:

“My hope is that it will become mandatory throughout firms over a certain level of employees. I think it will make a huge step change to that bias which exists  in the selection process. Work in American has shown, that the issue is not about racism or ageism or sexism it is more to do with brain patterns, that the person reading the CV has, so they will accept what is familiar and reject what is not familiar. That is what we are trying to do, to get through that first hurdle, then it is down to you at the interview.”

Lynne continued: “Vera Baird QC MP has admitted that the research that is being done on this has shown significant discrimination. If this is the case, then I cannot imagine that a Labour government, who are generally very good on equality, would not bring it into best practice in the public sector.”

Ms Featherstone MP said thatshe would re-table her amendment at the next stage of the Bill as it passes through the Commons.

The Conservative’s have opposed the Equality Bill, but Ms Featherstone MP said that she wished some of its provisions, including those on the gender pay gap had gone further and that she was concerned that a Conservative government may ditch the implementation of this particular provision as it is not due to be implemented until 2013.

She said: “The date of 2013 when the gender pay gap provisions will kick in, makes me wonder will the Tories really go up against the CBI who are against it? That could leave women with that kind of pay gap for another 40 years.”

She went on to pay tribute to the Labour government for implementing the Bill:

“We support the Bill but we wish it had come in 12 years ago, not just now. But congratulattions to the Labour government for bringing it forward. Of course I want to push them forward, I think there are some significant omissions, particularly on equal pay, but the Bill is hugely important and it will help people to get out of a real poverty trap.”

Footnotes:

NPG launch

1. Wpradio.co.uk is a web based broadcaster supported by all parties. It has over 70 interviews with women and male politicians of all parties which can be listened to online or downloaded as podcasts.

1. wpradio.co.uk has generated 58,000 hits a month and our web stats show that our visitors are loyal, they return, tune in for some time and to more than one item.

1. wpradio also carries international content and has interviews with women MEPs in Europe, and women politicians in Africa and the Middle East.

1. Our supporters include Harriet Harman MP, Theresa May MP and Jo Swinson MP and many other female politicians listed on our site.

1. The British Library archives all the interviews on wpradio.co.uk in its new web collection.

1. For more information contact Boni Sones on 07703 716961.

End.