Oh for goodness’ sake! Christina Hendricks is a fine looking woman and it is great to see a curvy woman rather than an ultra thin one. But that was hardly the point of the article in the Sunday Times! However the follow-on newspaper articles in other publications seem to focus only on Ms Hendricks.

The last thing we need is to move from one impossible idealised and unobtainable image of the super skinny kind to another impossible and unobtainable image of the curvy kind!

Today at the Dispatch Box – myself, Theresa May, Maria Miller and Andrew Stunell were all on the front bench together – in a change to how things have been done in the past. Instead of Questions to the Minister for Equalities being only for myself and Theresa – as part of mainstreaming – Maria Miller who has Ministerial responsibility for People with Disabilities (from the Department of Work and Pensions) and Andrew Stunell  (Minister for Communities and Local Government) who has responsibility for race – came together for joined up equalities questions.

The questions I got asked today were all on coalition commitments: the right for all to request flexible working; the extension of internships for Black and Ethnic Minorities across every department in Whitehall and the commitment to push equality for Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual and Trans across the world.

These are all good news stories. The right to request flexible working for all will mean that lone parents, carers – anyone – will have the right to request flexible working. We have said we will consult with business about this and we will be doing so and then moving forward on that commitment. Flexible working is good for business and good for the employee. The  pool of talent is widened, retention and recruitment improved – and a better, happier workforce means a better, happier business. In my own department, the Government Equalities Office – 57% of the workforce work flexibly and all posts are advertised as open to flexible working.

On BAME internships in Whitehall – I am working with the Cabinet Office who lead on this. The Cabinet Office is assessing where we have got to with current programs which run across some, but not all, departments, and which are mostly summer internships only. When the status quo has been quantified we will be meeting to work on taking forward our commitment for BAME interns to be in every Whitehall Department.

As to LGB&T rights abroad – we are we going to use all our influence through the Commonwealth and Europe to pro-actively address the issues of the abuse of human rights in those countries where homosexuals and transgender people face torture or death. I have already had some dealings in regard of Malawi and Uganda – but look forward to driving this  agenda forward at every possible opportunity.

One of the questions I get asked and a frequent refrain in comments to the blog is why I support coalition with the Conservatives. Today it is 10 weeks exactly since the coalition was born. So here are some of the reasons that explain why I believe in coalition government.

In the little over two months since the Government was formed – we have been able to deliver a huge amount of our manifesto as well being able to greatly influence the Coalition and its agenda.

Going into the election we made clear that we had four key priorities: fairer taxes; a fair start for children with extra funding for disadvantaged pupils; a comprehensive clean up of our politics, including a fairer voting system; and a green, sustainable economy. Thanks to our involvement, the Government will deliver on each of these.

There are also a large number of other Lib Dem policies and pledges that will now begin to make a real, positive difference to people’s lives because of our role in the Coalition Government. These include everything from the rolling back of the surveillance state and giving people back their civil liberties, to prison reforms, fairer pensions, the ending of child detention and the scrapping of the third runway at Heathrow.

Delivering on our promises

Fairer taxes
The Liberal Democrats promised to make the tax system fairer by ensuring no one pays tax on the first £10,000 they earn and closing loopholes that allow the wealthy to pay a smaller proportion of their income in tax than people on low and middle incomes.

The Coalition Government has already taken a huge step towards achieving this by raising the income tax threshold by £1,000 in last month’s Budget and reforming Capital Gains Tax. The income tax threshold will continue to be increased every year during this Parliament.

The Liberal Democrats also promised to restore the earnings link to pensions, which will now happen.

We also promised wide scale banking reform, including a banking levy to make sure that banks pay for the financial support they received from the taxpayer. The levy, which will raise £2.5bn, was announced in the Budget.

A fair start for children
The Liberal Democrats promised to introduce a Pupil Premium to target extra money at disadvantaged children. The Coalition Agreement makes clear that this will now happen. (In Haringey Labour underfunded our schools for years and years – letting our children get £1300 less each than children in Islington or Camden).

We also promised greater freedoms for teachers over the curriculum, which will also be brought in as a key part of the Coalition’s education reforms.

Fair politics
The Liberal Democrats promised a comprehensive clean up of the rotten political system. This is now a key part of the Coalition’s agenda for which Nick Clegg has responsibility.

The plans include:
• A referendum on the Alternative Vote to take place in May 2011
• The right to sack MPs guilty of serious misconduct
• Fixed term parliaments of five years
• Reform of party funding
• Moving towards a wholly or partly elected House of Lords, elected by proportional representation
• A statutory register of lobbyists
• A radical devolution of power and greater financial autonomy to local government and community groups

A green, sustainable economy
The Liberal Democrats promised a raft of policies to help the economy recover and make sure that we build a new green and sustainable economy fit for the 21st century.

A huge number of these policies will now become a reality, including:
• Tough action to tackle the deficit
• Reform of the banking system to make sure that banks lend to viable British businesses
• An independent commission on separating investment and retail banking
• Measures to improve energy efficiency in homes and businesses
• Support for low carbon energy production and an increase the target for energy from renewable sources
• Enabling the creation of a national high speed rail network
• The creation of a smart electricity grid and the roll-out of smart meters
• The creation of a green investment bank
• The establishment of an emissions performance standard that will prevent coal-fired power stations being built unless they are equipped with Carbon Capture and Storage Technology
• Replacing Air Passenger Duty with a per-plane duty
• The provision of a floor price for carbon, as well as working to persuade the EU to move towards full auctioning of   ETS permits

Other Lib Dem policies that will now become a reality
The Liberal Democrats have long campaigned for the restoration of freedoms and civil liberties eroded under Labour and the rolling back of the surveillance state. A huge number of Lib Dem policies will now happen, including:
• The abolition of Identity Cards, the National Identity register, the next generation of biometric passports and the ContactPoint Database
• The repeal of unnecessary laws
• Further regulation of CCTV
• The outlawing of finger-printing of children at school without permission
• Extending the Freedom of Information Act
• Ending child detention for immigration purposes

There are also a host of other Lib Dem policies that will now happen under the Coalition Government. These include:
• Fair compensation for Equitable Life victims
• The modernisation of the Royal Mail
• Flexible working and promotion of equal pay
• Reform of the NHS to strengthen the voices of patients and the role of doctors
• A commission on long-term reform of social care
• Cutting Quangos and government bureaucracy
• Implementing the recommendations of the Calman Commission
• A referendum on further powers for the Welsh Assembly

Here is my latest column for the Highgate Handbook and the Muswell Hill Flyer:

Last year there were six deaths in Haringey – as well as injuries. One little girl, for example, had both legs broken and will never be able to do sport or such like again – in her life.

By the time you read this – the Liberal Democrat group on Haringey Council will have put forward a proposal for 20mph in residential streets across the whole of Haringey.

From evidence elsewhere, 20mph saves lives, reduces seriousness of injuries and cuts pollution. 20mph as a pan borough speed limit has the downside of being a blanket policy – but the big upside of being simple, uniform policy. It’s a common complaint of motorists that rules are too complicated and are enforced wrongly.

Because of simplicity – there are no physical measures like humps or chicanes – 20mph across the whole of Haringey’s residential streets would end up being massively cheaper than putting in separate schemes for each street with humps or other measures. The estimates are something like £22 million to deliver a 20mph speed limit street by street (30% of Haringey’s streets already do have traffic calming) but £600,000 for the pan borough option. That’s quite a difference!

There would clearly be a need for enforcement to make sure that there was a penalty to not observing the limit. Of course, ultimately, there needs to be more than one policy to tackle traffic and vehicle management. One aspect won’t be the total answer. Education is vitally important because in the end – the objective must be to get people to change their own driving behaviour rather than change the fabric of our streets.

However, in the meantime, on financial grounds alone – in the middle of this economic crisis – perhaps we should consider the pan borough idea. For every road traffic accident where the injured person is provided with NHS ambulance services, the charge is £177 for each occasion. Where the injured person receives NHS treatment, but is not admitted to hospital, the charge is £585. The daily charge for NHS in-patient treatment is £719. That’s not to even begin to count the personal cost, police time on accidents, loss to the economy of working days that someone has to take off and so on.

You can imagine what this comes to in mega-millions across the country. The savings would be huge to the NHS – where despite funding being ring-fenced with real terms increases – budgets will be under enormous strain. But more importantly – lives would be saved and injuries minimized – and pollution will be reduced.

Can we really afford not to introduce pan Haringey 20mph speed limits? Let me know what you think!

The way we have been living, spending and behaving – combined with an overweening state – has led to a diminution of human potential and to operating in ever decreasing circles. We seem to value ourselves by what we do and what we buy (or cannot buy) – rather than whether we are good, kind, thoughtful or have other personally admirable and altruistic traits. We follow prescribed routes from centralised diktats where thinking, personal responsibility, professionalism and non-conformity are driven out by targets and tick boxes.

In 2007 I wrote a chapter for a book ‘Reinventing the State: Social Liberalism in the 21st Century’. This starts from the basis that New Liberalism was the outcome of a process of inventing a new kind of state a century ago and that after decades of over-centralisation we need to reinvent it now along social liberal lines.

Much of what I wrote was to do with how we adapt to the ending of the old order, where state, church (or other religions), family, schools, the judiciary and other pillars of society that governed our ‘norms’ no longer held their previous sway or respect.

An increasingly authoritarian approach to almost everything under Labour moved us towards a population controlled by legal parameters rather than social ones.

Change has to come from within – and it is about the behaviour of the people who are part of those structures. This is not about morality – but more about engagement – where consideration for others and the common good comes as high at least on out list as simply our own well-being.

There is a genuine and urgent need to radically reform and change the balance between the state and the people  – that is now under way and part of the answer. The even bigger challenge is  – how do we change behaviour?

Delightful visit to Muswell Hill children’s library to open it now it has been restored to its former glory. You really have to go there to see how fantastic it now is. The roof has huge, ornate sky-light type windows in – glorious – but in all the years I did my surgery there when I was a Muswell Hill councillor – you would never had noticed – as the dirt and grime of years obscured their magnificence. The walls had always been peeling and decrepit – and an old mural across the length of one wall was dingy and dark. The mural had been lovingly restored – and now the library is quite magical. No doubt lots of local children will spend many a happy hour. Congratulations to everyone who worked so hard to make this finally happen.