I’ve been emailed by a Real Woman

A Real Woman has been in touch to tell me about new Lib Dem policy proposals for Real Women.

As readers of the Voice should know by now – Jo Swinson MP penned a piece on Perez and photoshopping last week – the Lib Dems have a policy paper on women’s rights. The full paper is available at http://www.RealWomen.org.uk, and here’s the summary from the front page:

Women face pressure from all directions these days. Hit hard by the recession, trying to juggle family commitments with work and home life, it’s easy to feel like you’re running just to stand still. The media screams out an endless list of things still to do: get a bikini body in 20 days, plan the perfect children’s party, how to look 10 years younger. Despite great strides forward in equality, women still get paid less than men, and generally still end up taking more responsibility for childcare and looking after elderly relatives. This can be hugely rewarding, but combining this with a job can seem almost impossible.

There’s a lot the Government could do to give a helping hand. Making employers check for pay discrimination would help women get the money they deserve. Providing 20 hours per week free childcare would allow parents to make real choices about returning to work. Enabling everyone to ask for flexible working would help to change the rigid work culture, and make it easier to juggle different commitments. And it would be nice to inject some realism into the media’s portrayal of women, instead of the suggestion that nothing less than perfection will do.

Today’s email was asking us to spread the word:

We want to make sure as many women as possible (Liberal Democrat or not) to benefit from the policies in Real Women and the advice contained on the site.

Help us spread the word about Real Women:

  • Send an email about Real Women to 5 people you know, regardless of whether they are Liberal Democrat supporters or not
  • Post this site to your social networking page(s)
  • Blog about it / Tweet about it
  • Print out a copy and send it to anyone that does not have online access

Tweets on 2009-08-17

  • @hughmcguire pretty much every newsagent everywhere – did you want to buy it advance, though? #
  • @hughmcguire they stop working when you stop paying. You can use them abroad but they will cost more. All the networks do sim-only packages in reply to hughmcguire #
  • @hughmcguire all the networks do'em might just be worth going into one of the ubiquitous phone shops and talking to them. #
  • How to get fired by Facebook http://tr.im/wv6Y #
  • @lordbonkers Sorry to hear about the upset phone tweets. #
  • Supermarket chiller microwave panini. Every bit as awful as it sounds. #
  • @jonxyz have you done your model justice? #
  • @hughmcguire here's some Flickr pics of why Ludlow is worth visiting http://tr.im/wvRV #
  • Bus cliché: none for ages then three at once. #
  • @ianvisits smoke detector? Or has someone planted one of those deliberately annoying random beepers #
  • http://twitpic.com/e8c38 – Here's a shout-out to all the monkeys awaiting A Level results – good luck in your playwriting career! #

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Jo Swinson’s Indy Q&A

The Lib Dem MP for Dunbartonshire East has submitted herself to a gruelling grilling at the hands of the readers of the Independent.

Among the questions – such taxing ones “that thing you just did, isn’t it a huge waste of time?” – “no”; “don’t you think you were too young to be an MP?” – “no”; and “who’s your bestest friend in all the Lib Dems?” – I will leave you to visit the story yourself to see the thrilling answer.

Amongst the questions there are some better thought out ones and some interesting answers, so it’s well worth five mins of your time.

You can find the interview here.

Landmark Trust

It’s August, so thoughts turn to holidays.

Last year, this photo from a friend on Flickr led me to the Landmark Trust for the first time.

I started off on their website, and liked what I saw but thought that their prices were slightly on the steep side. They point out that if you divide them down to per person, per night, they are not at all unreasonable, and a closer inspection showed that they were rather more affordable out of season, and still more so massively out of season.

Their handbook is a rather gorgeous, coffeebook tome, and I think it’s worth the tenner it costs. I bought it the first time with the intention of giving it to a friend for Christmas, months away from the event; and unfortunately after that we agreed not to give gifts, so I ended up with it for myself.

There was a bit of cross-over between Landmark and my bellringing friends. Landmark manage all of the property on Lundy Island, which has a church with ten bells and few neighbours, and is therefore a good location for ringing the more antisocial peals and quarters.

This year, an email arrived saying that their website is now searchable, and so it is. I have been playing with it for a while. The information on the site duplicates the info in the handbook, but hopefully will grow to be more – and more responsive – than the printed copy.

If you are interested in booking, then there is a very helpful group on Flickr with lots more photos available than in the handbook. Scroll down on the group’s homepage to find a clickable index with a page for each of the Trust’s properties.

The photo group answered some of my questions. We have now booked a November weekend with friends in an isolated house with fireplaces – something to keep my pyromaniac side happy, anyway. But I still have questions. We’re planning a bumper foody weekend – but what is the kitchen kit like? Is there really no heating but the open fires and the woodburning stoves? And is there no television? (fingers crossed!)

See also

English Buildings visits Leominster

The English Buildings blog – that I started reading thanks to Liberal England – recently paid a trip to Leominster.

How can I describe Leominster? My family are from there on my father’s side, but I was born and spent the first part of my life in Tenbury Wells – more specifically Burford. So technically, is Leominster my home town? The town where I spent the second half of my childhood?

Anyway, it’s a town I’m very familiar with and it’s also a town that few people visit and fewer can pronounce. (It’s “lem-ster” – and not even all of the people who live there know that, apparently). So it was a little surprising to see English Buildings had been there at all and I was interested to see what famous building they might have chosen. The famous Grange, the enormous priory church? Some of the big old Victorian mansions up the Bargates?

In fact, they chose Lloyds Bank in Corn Square, a building I probably passed every day when I lived there, and that just fit into the square and seemed a little unremarkable.

I’d certainly never noticed the key feature that English Buildings highlighted – the extra carving over the portico. Next time I return, I shall have to make sure I look out for it.

Tweets on 2009-08-16

  • Leaving recipe to fate. If I can find amaretti biscuits on foot from my house, it's strawberry cheesecake, else choc honeycomb pots. #
  • Choc pots: http://bit.ly/19DM95 or strawberrfy parifaitty thing: http://bit.ly/keD0i #
  • RT @owenblacker: Wow. Stunning pic of Mont St Michel. Best viewed on black. (via @cosmodaddy) http://flic.kr/p/6PBYWa #
  • @owenblacker OMG are you kidding me?! Have you *seen* the Supersizers? Coren in toga, leather, 80s style…? #
  • Sherwood let me down! No amaretti biscuits! Continental meats sells them but was out of stock 😦 #
  • So no setting fire to biscotti wrappers for me! – YouTube http://bit.ly/3j8k97 #

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What does 300 mean to you?

Is it the epic historical film from last year?

Do you see a triangular number and a pair of twin primes (149 and 151)?

Or do you recall how Jo Shaw, the Lib Dem PPC for Holburn and St Pancras revealed in the Telegraph last week that that’s how many children are added to the UK’s DNA database each and every day.

Almost 1.1 million youngsters aged between ten and 17 have had their profiles recorded by the police since 2000, with a large proportion aged under 15, the Daily Telegraph can disclose.
And around one in six are likely to have never been convicted of any crime.

Ministers are currently reviewing the database but proposals would still see the profiles of innocent people kept for up to 12 years.

Youngsters who commit one minor crime will be kept on until they reach 18 while those guilty of sex or violent crimes will be kept indefinitely.

Jo Shaw, the Liberal Democrat parliamentary campaigner for Holborn & St Pancras who obtained the figures, said: “Labour’s approach to tackling crime is unfair, heavy-handed and ineffective.

“Storing the DNA of thousands of innocent young people as young as ten is unlikely to solve our crime problems, but is a costly way of stigmatising young people. If you’re innocent, you shouldn’t have your data on who you are kept for years.”

Tweets on 2009-08-15

  • Phrase from planning ctte "…and also contains, towards its southern end, a Grade 2 Listed nuclear bunker…" #
  • Ooh, they've added national flags (a strange assortment, mind) to the Chairoplane ride in market square beach. They look nice. #
  • @meryl_f yes, replied to email… oh… #
  • @meryl_f looks like Zetnet were taken over by Breathe a *year* ago and I didn't realise. Breathe don't really seem competent. #
  • RT @hughmcguire: Where should I go in Shropshire in England? Cycling or walking or boating perhaps? Any gems of villages, things I shoul … #
  • @hughmcguire ask Shropshire expert @lordbonkers (seriously!) in reply to hughmcguire #
  • @hughmcguire Ludlow: mediaeval castle. Jane austen dramatisations filmed there. Amazing local food renaissance. in reply to hughmcguire #
  • @hughmcguire Church Stretton (and the other strettons) spectacular English scenery. Train from Ludlow to Shrewsbury goes through. in reply to hughmcguire #
  • @hughmcguire Ironbridge. The first, erm, Iron bridge. Sniperstones. Wenlock Edge. Shrewsbury. in reply to hughmcguire #
  • @hughmcguire We're going camping in Oswestry next week. in reply to hughmcguire #
  • @willhowells yes. 🙂 and my family, we're from near there. #
  • @hughmcguire @jimmowatt CAT is in Machynlledd in Wales – hours from Shropshire! #
  • @hughmcguire @jimmowatt CAT is really good thobut. #

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Tweets on 2009-08-14

  • @mithomas20 Yup, I'm expecting to go to Liberal Drinks tonight at the Lord Roberts http://bit.ly/3CfqVa #
  • @leighcaple Oh, yeah, the Mad Men smoking is making ME want to start smoking and I never have! #
  • Somewhere in this house are an awful lot of brand new electric tooth brush heads. I always buy two but can never find the second one. #
  • @documentally you can copy and paste text from one Mac to another, and share keyboard and mouse, using Synergy http://bit.ly/hs7CZ #
  • #welovetheNHS I was breach, so born by emergency caesarian, after 20 mile ambulance ride to nearest acute hospital. Not been in one since! #
  • @alexfoster no wait, did you forget your hearing test or your endoscopy? Or your asthma and reflux medicine? Annual GP visits? #welovetheNHS #
  • Losing my trousers running for bus. #
  • @paultrollope I get that a lot #
  • @hughmcguire I don't have an iphone, I'm a Nokia man (for the time being anyway) #
  • Going to see @Nottm_Contemp this morning #

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Second day for #welovetheNHS

Yesterday we brought you news about the bizarre battle between American rightwingers spreading misinformation about the NHS, and British users of the NHS who were actually quite proud of it.

24 hours later and Tweetminster (which monitors the twitter updates of MPs and PPCs and provides a service where you can search them) reports

65 #welovethenhs tweets from MPs & PPCS. 8 from @UKLabour MPs & 4 PPCs, 3 from @LibDems MPs & 3 PPCs, 1 from @Conservatives PPC

Our own Nick_Clegg was amongst them, as was Prime Minister Brown (whose tweet looks like it’s had help from a speechwriter):

NHS often makes the difference between pain and comfort, despair and hope, life and death. Thanks for always being there.

Judged by how fast these memes gather pace, both Clegg and Brown responded pretty late actually. Taking part was a no-brainer, almost everyone on Twitter was doing it, and it took a day for them to get into it.

On google, Lib Dems have dominated the search for the last day: google #welovetheNHS and LDV’s post from yesterday still comes fairly near the top – we were second after Twitter itself for quite a while. Put in the spaces and the top blog is Charlotte Gore’s acid response to the campaign. Charlotte raises a very valid point of course, that if it hadn’t been for completely overblown, factually wrong criticisms of the NHS from America, it’s hard to imagine that the entire UK twitter-base would have spontaneously exploded into unequivocal support for the institution.

Our own Mark Pack reports that the origin of the storm of support was sitcom writer Graham Linehan, although we’re a little a baffled at his assertion that Pack doesn’t look a character from the IT Crowd. Whatever can he mean? [/deadpan]

Comedy songwriter Mitch Benn pointed out in the middle of the night that a US guy seemed to think that all of the tweets were coming from the army of bureaucrats who run the NHS. And as I type he’s heading into the Now Show recording studio to sing a song about – we’ll find out on Friday night at 6.30pm and Saturday at 12.30pm whether it makes the final cut.

And a few Lib Dem bloggers have weighed in too: