Boni Sones is a real trooper. She has campaigned, cajoled, recorded and encouraged womens’ political voyage. Today, Women’s Parliamentary Radio – which is really her baby – held a lunch with GCap – a huge commercial radio company (who themselves are being bought out by Global – that’s the way the radio cookie crumbles). GCap are partnering Women’s Parliamentary Radio and hopefully this will be good for both parties – giving them a niche market and a pathway on a load of issues. You go girl!

Spoke yesterday to the National Council of Voluntary Youth Services. Strikes me that the Government’s shift to making the voluntary sector deliver services is full of all sorts of dangers. Too much to go into here – but from those in the room it is clear that there are huge concerns about funding; the nature of the hoops that volunteers have to go through – even if they are still relatively small organisations where people only give a couple of hours; the media’s incessant attacks on young people; the bias against funding for faith based organisations by local authorities – and the list went on. Much for me to think about particularly in relationship to the new Liberal Democrat policies on youth which I am responsible for and am just embarking upon.

Quick link to the Daily Mirror who have got a story about a Conservative MP criticising plans for flexi-working to help parents:

A Tory MP provoked fury yesterday by claiming that parents will use flexi-time working as an excuse to shirk.

Brian Binley was responding to hints from Gordon Brown that Labour could offer more flexible working rights to parents of children up to the age of 16.

[Lynne Featherstone said] “Without flexible working it’s impossible to be a mother.

“Most parents are responsible, and flexible working allows them to bring their skills and energy to work.

You can read the full story here.

“In deciding what I believe in these matters I have weighed up the balance between the right to life – the most important civil liberty – the fact that there’s no such thing as compete security and the importance of our hard won civil liberties. Therefore on a matter of principle I cannot support the 42-day pre-charge detention in this bill … I do not see on practical basis as well as principled one, that these proposals are in any way workable.”

Precisely.

Dragged kicking and screaming – the Church has sort of voted for women bishops. Hurrah!

If the Church had wanted to preserve its tradition of male dominance – then fine (well not fine) – but it should have given up the 26 places for Bishops of the Church of England in the Lords: we shouldn’t hand over a wedge of seats in our Parliament and say “men only”.

So – from the brink – the Church creaks into the 21st century. I’m glad that they rejected the second class (for women) bishops and all the other equivocations that would have been all things to all men (literally).

I don’t think we’re quite there yet – but I did heave a sigh of relief that the vote went through. There are enough issues that the Church could get involved in in a helpful and constructive way. Their eternal obsession to keep women in their place and homosexuals at bay has no place in the modern world. No-one said change was easy – but it is necessary.

Guest of Honour at my old school – South Hampstead High School – for a prize giving for years 7-10.

I go first to the Head’s (Ms Jenny Stephen) which is in the first classroom I was in – Upper III as I recall. That’s why I’ve never really understood which is which year these days – even for my own children – as it is different from when I was a lass!

About 400 girls, teachers and prize winners’ parents are gathered in the Hall as we, the platform party (albeit there’s no platform), walk in. The girls are all standing and sit only after we are seated. It was quite nice, actually, to be called by my surname – Ms Featherstone.

Ms Stephen gave a really excellent speech- and to my relief a balanced speech – yes exhorting academic achievement but also all the other things that make someone a proper person.

We were treated to a really lovely musical ensemble, poetry and then a presentation on issues around water. The last – extraordinarily pertinent – in terms of the real battlegrounds of future wars as water becomes scarcer and scarcer.

The speech I gave – outside of amusing anecdotes about my time at South Hampstead (of which there are many – and some I dare not tell) was really about social justice. South Hampstead is a wonderful school and the girls who go there have an advantage – and therefore a responsibility too. They must realise too that the world is hard and gritty – and that isolating and insulating yourself from the world out there is not the answer. So – I hope they enjoyed my rant. I certainly enjoyed going back.

It’s funny really – I had only gone there because my Headmistress at Highgate Primary School had told my mother that I was a clever little girl and could probably get a scholarship. My parents would never have paid for education – they didn’t really believe in it. Getting out and earning a living was important to them. However, my Head (Ms Jobson) won the day. She sat me in her office for six weeks to teach me herself the things I would need to know to take the scholarship exam. I won a scholarship – and so that is how I ended up at South Hampstead.

Memories certainly came flooding back – but they are all another story…

This is British – and then some. But I wonder if it is more than it seems on the surface – for I wonder if it is part of the answer to many of the ills that beset us today by helping to give a greater and stronger sense of community with our neighbours. And so, that is the topic of my latest newspaper column … read on!