I just wanted to acknowledge the representations that have been made to me via Twitter in regard to the terrible crimes against women in the DRC  and to let people know some of the action that the British Government is taking in this regard.

DRC is one of the worst place in the world to be born a girl. Women and girls are systematically disadvantaged and on the global gender equality index DRC ranks 137 out of 138 countries. Nearly two thirds of married women report being physically or sexually abused by their partner and this underlying problem is overlaid by horrendous incidents of sexual violence by men in uniform in conflict affected areas.

As International Ministerial Champion for tackling VAWG across the world – clearly I have been pursuing what action we can further take as a government.

The international community is united in condemning the high levels of sexual violence in the DRC and the UK plays a vocal part in bringing concerns directly to the attention of President Kabila and his ministers.

In addition to the development of our National Action Plan to deliver UNSCR 1325 commitments on Women Peace and Security in the DRC we have also developed a specific DRC sexual Violence Strategy which focuses on human rights training for the army, awareness-raising and implementation of legislation medical and psycho-social support, legal support for victims and high-level advocacy with senior DRC government. DFID are currently providing over £30 million per year to the UN Humanitarian Pooled Fund for DRC.

Clearly the situation is horrific – and it is vital that political leaders (including military leadership) in the DRC should continue to be encouraged to call for a step change to better address the vicious cycle of impunity for wartime sexual violence. The recent conviction of Lt Col. Kabibi for mass rape in South Kivu serves as one positive example of how tackling impunity at the local level can potentially provide a powerful deterrent to other military leaders.

One key issue is that despite wartime sexual violence being recognised as a grave breach of international humanitarian law since the early 1990s it is still inadequately recognised, reported or addressed.

I am meeting Michelle Bachelet on Monday – the Head of UN Women – and hope to be able to discuss this and other matters pertaining to VAWG across the world.

As above!

Today is an opportunity to take a small democratic step. AV simply means that MPs in future would have a majority of people in their constituencies supporting them to some degree! Those who still only want to vote for one candidate still can.

That’s it in a nutshell.

A small step – but a positive one.

My LibDem Haringey Council colleagues show exactly why people in Haringey are angry with the Labour council. As the audit committee report demonstrates in black and white – Haringey Labour are happy to they spend, spend, spend – and pay for their overspending by closing older peoples’ luncheon clubs, children’s centres and swingeing cuts to youth services. Less to do with government reductions – far more to do with being incapable of running a council within its means.

Here is the news release:

A special report released this week shows how Haringey Council continued to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money on consultants without adequate, or in many cases any checks on spending, performance or contracts.

The report compiled by Deloitte, which was considered at the Council’s Audit Committee on 19th April 2011, shows that a proper business case for spending on consultants existed for only half of the test cases, half were engaged without a proper contract, only one in ten cases showed any evidence that the Council were monitoring expenditure and in no cases were there any checks on performance.

Liberal Democrats have criticised the lack of control by the Labour Council on its spending and have called for a commitment that this situation is rectified with all existing consultants and all future contracts.

Last month Haringey Liberal Democrats uncovered that since October, when the Council was aware of the scale of the reduction of government grant, it continued to spend £4,800 a day on consultants.

Cllr Robert Gorrie, Haringey Liberal Democrat Leader and Finance Spokesperson, comments:

“At a time when the Labour Council is choosing to close many essential services it is simply unacceptable that so much local taxpayers’ money is being spent in such a reckless fashion without proper controls or even basic performance management.

“This lack of control and potentially profligate spending is entirely symptomatic of a Labour administration who have overspent last years budget by millions and are trying to blame anything but themselves for the problem.”

ENDS

Link to the Audit Committee papers (Appendix A p.6-7)
Linkto a news release sent in March 2011 showing Haringey Council’s spending on consultants since October 2010.
The Labour Council has agreed to use £1.7million of Area Based Grant to fund the £10million overspend in 2010/11. Area Based Grant is meant to support local priorities and has in the past been spent on enterprise projects and tackling worklessness.

My column from this week’s Ham & High

Fairer votes are just that – fairer! When the public were highly polarised between two parties, in some ways it made sense to have a system that works with a two-party system. But now the public chooses to spread votes much more widely, the electoral system should reflect that – after all, that’s what a democracy is for -serving the public, not the politicians.

Labour and Conservatives got over 90% in 51, 55 and 59 elections but under 70% last year.

Life is more fluid and more complicated these days. We all talk about the importance of diversity – it’s just our political system doesn’t walk the talk. Plural politics is a more open and real life way of making decisions. So much better than the ya boo politics that this country has laboured under. Our current political system sets an example of political non-cooperation and bully takes all culture.

Do we actually like the way politics is conducted in this country? We are all guilty – us politicians – because in the First Past the Post (FPTP) system we have – negative campaigning is effective. We look good if the other guys look bad.

With AV we politicians need to be thinking about everyone – not just our core vote – because we need to be everyone’s second choice if we cannot be their first choice. That means that candidates have to work harder and reach out across party lines.

We would have more grown up politics. We could move to a world where not everything the other lot did was bad. We could be on an improving continuum. At the very least – we could feel that over half of local people in our own local constituencies voted for us as first choice or at least some choice. We would no longer disenfranchise the majorities who do vote but end up with a representative that they didn’t vote for or want at all.

But let’s not over romanticize the case. The Alternative Vote is a relatively small step. But it’s a hugely important step – because it will mean that in each constituency a majority of those who voted did not actually totally vote against the person who wins – and they will have a more effective mandate than before.

And just to rebut some of the dreadful myths that are being propagated – the next General Election – if it was to be under the Alternative Vote – will cost the same as it will if it is First Past the Post. Please don’t believe the scare-mongering about cost.

So I hope you will vote yes for change. I hope you will vote for a system where we can change the behavior of political campaigning to a more positive experience. I hope you will vote yes because having a few marginal seats on which the larger parties target all their efforts to swing them in their own direction is no way to think about how to run a country. I hope you will vote yes because safe seats where nothing ever changes or can change because the candidate only needs their usual suspects and doesn’t have to worry about what the rest think or feel is no good to anyone – which played its part at the heart of the expenses scandal. If you don’t have to work to get 50% of the vote – you might even start to take your position for granted.

Let’s move forward to a fairer system – where the people who represent us have to persuade more than 50% of us – one way or the other – that they are the person we want to represent us in Parliament.

Hurrah! At last (and hopefully finally successfully) the issue of the first born MALE child of the monarchy being first in line to the throne – regardless of any sisters that might have been born before him – looks like it will now end.

I have been banging on about this for ages including here , here, here, here and here. You can see it’s been one of my recurring themes….

Of course – now the race is on – because the change must come before it becomes an issue with actual children involved – and therefore  far more difficult and personal. So with the marriage of Kate and William – time is of the essence.

This is of huge importance in terms of equalities. There can be no more potent message to people in this country and beyond – that women are second class citizens – than the shoving of a girl child out of the way of the throne in favour of her younger brother.

And it is extra-ordinary – that with a female monarch such as Queen Elizabeth – who commandes respect from all – even republicans – that this inappropriate tradition that belongs to the past should continue.

The last time I raised this publicly – there was agreement on all sides that this should be done – but that the stumbling block was that the change has to be agreed to by all the Commonwealth countries.

Whilst that is the case – I very much hope that no Commonwealth Country would wish to stand in the way of this change and would give their full support.

If we don’t act now – this unacceptable discrimination will be here for another generation. It is an insult to women – an historical legacy and relic from a by-gone age – and this is our  moment of opportunity for change.

On 14 March 2011 the Government launched Working for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Equality: Moving Forward, which sets out the actions Government is taking to tackle lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender inequality.

But trans issues are often quite distinct and we recognise the need for some of those issues to be addressed separately.

To make sure we really deliver for the trans community, we need to know how you think we should be progressing the agenda.  The first E-Bulletin can be found here.

The bulletin includes an online survey asking for your views and ideas. We will use the findings of this first survey to shape the Government policy in trans equality and the transgender equality action plan. We would be grateful if you could complete the survey by 6 May 2011.

To help us make sure we are reaching the widest range of people, please forward this message and bulletin to your friends and colleagues; post it on your blogs and discussion forums; and raise it in your community groups.

As readers of this blog will know – the Government’s Body Confidence campaign (co-founded when we were in opposition by myself and LibDem MP Jo Swinson way back when) is moving forward.

One of our main themes is the persistent delivery of perfected images which imply that the use of a certain product will deliver such perfection – when of course – the perfection is courtesy of the air brush or digital alteration.

The advertising industry has moved forward on this issue. It is a step in the right direction – a small step – but a step!

The Committee of Advertising Practice/Broadcasting Committee of Advertising Practice – the two bodies who make the rules for the advertising industry and work with the ASA to enforce them have produced a paper (guidance) on the use of production techniques in cosmetics.

It was published on the 4th April and sets out in simple form what can and cannot be done to advertisements to ensure that they do not mislead the consumer.

There is more info and a summary of the guidelines available on the CAP/BCAP website here.

This shows that the ASA are acknowledging the pressure that is mounting about pre and post production techniques and demonstrating that they understand that this is a real issue. I welcome this move in the right direction.

Whilst this particular step forward moves the agenda on (so long as they enforce it) in terms of misleading advertisements – we are still working on a number of fronts to address the endless concentration on one type of body image being desirable (impossibly thin and perfect) – and campaigning for diversity of image.

This isn’t about the advertising industry alone – there are many industries who could contribute hugely to improving the situation including: the broadcast media, fashion industry, magazines, sport, education and both the film and drama fields as well.

And it’s not just about women and girls – there are a growing number of men and boys resorting to steroids to give them the perfected male images that are now promoted in men’s mags too.

I hope to be able to update everyone on progress on the Government Body Confidence campaign next month.

Robert Gorrie, LibDem Council Group Leader on Haringey has told us that he will be stepping down as Leader at the AGM next Month. A new leader will be elected at that point.

Robert has been such a great leader for our LibDem group – I am very sorry to see him go – but totally understand that there are other demands in life that dictate what happens. And Robert wanted to step down now so as to leave plenty of time for the new leader to prepare for the next local elections in 2014, when the Lib Dems will be campaigning to overturn over 40 years of Labour rule. He hands over one of the strongest and largest Liberal Democrat groups in London.

Robert was first elected to Haringey Council in Hornsey in May 2006, where a big swing to the Liberal Democrats wiped out Labour from Hornsey ward. He took on the leadership of the Liberal Democrat group in 2008.

Since then, Robert has been successful in spearheading the scrutiny of the Labour Council over the tragic death of Baby Peter, which saw the resignation of senior Labour figures. He had also led the group in highlighting Labour’s financial disasters and mismanagement such as the £37million of local taxpayers’ money frozen in Icelandic Banks. This year, he has provided robust alternatives to Labour’s decision to close older people’s day care centres and cut youth services by 75 per cent.

He was also key in my successful re-election as the Liberal Democrat MP for Hornsey and Wood Green, with an increased majority.

I wish him all the very best for the future.

Now I have the specific figures for how Haringey benefits from the LibDem manifesto pledges delivered by the Coalition for this new financial year:

In Haringey:

• 84000 people are getting a £200 income tax cut – benefiting 23 million people across the country
• 2900 people (those on the lowest earnings) have been lifted out of paying income tax altogether, with more to come
• £625million extra has gone to our schools, aimed at the most disadvantaged pupils – rising to £2.5billion a year by 2015 (£4.5million to Haringey).
• 25500 pensioners have been given an extra £4.50 a week – and those retiring from today will be on average £15,000 better off over their retirement.

And yes – of course there are some really tough decisions that have been made – but these measures are progressive, improving the situation for those with the least, even in the face of the massive deficit left by Labour.