06/02/2014 Question Time

tonight, we are in Gelling, in Kent, and welcome to Question Time.

Welcome to you at home, to our audience, here to ask the questions,

our panel, here to answer, and who are not told what the questions are.

Tonight, Conservative Skills and Enterprise Minister Matthew

Hancock, former Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell, tipped to be Labour's

candidate for Mayor of London, Respect MP George Galloway, who

could run against her, economist and author Alison Wolf, and his story

Starkey. -- historian and broadcaster David Starkey.

Our first question from Lisa Gibson, please. In the wake of two

Coronation Street actors being cleared of sex abuse charges, should

the accused be given anonymity in future rape cases? George Galloway,

the coalition agreement between Labour, between the Conservatives

and the Liberal Democrats did have a proposal that anonymity should begin

than to the person charged. What is your view? It is tricky, because

when accusations are made and the accused is named, sometimes people

come forward with evidence, and sometimes with further allegations

of other crimes. And it would obviously mitigate against that if

the accused was granted anonymity. But in the light of what happened

today, this fastly expensive, potentially devastating, disastrous

set of false act is a nation is against an innocent man, cleared by

the court, indeed, some of the charges were dropped well into the

case, before even reaching the jury. I think that this matter will return

to the agenda in a very big way. The accusers are, of course, granted

anonymity, correctly, and I think the time may be coming for the

accused similarly to be granted anonymity. You mean because there is

an increase in the number of cases that are being put before the

courts? Well, there appear to be, in these high profile cases, people in

this post Jimmy Savile here, who are the victims of opportunistic

accusation, and that seems to me to be invidious, unjust to them. I have

no reason to second-guess the jury today, which was apparently

absolutely unequivocal, but William Roache has spent many months under

the cloud of suspicion, entirely unjustifiably, as it has turned out,

and that can't be right. Tessa Jowell. What concerns me about rape

generally is that it is a very heavily under reported crime. And I

wouldn't want to see any step taken that would reduce the likelihood of

women coming forward, being helped to come forward, in some cases many

years later. Notwithstanding the case today, I don't think that this

case, for all its celebrity and the suffering of William Roache and his

family, is a reason to take what is a very major step, by allowing

anonymity for those charged with rape. I think the major priority is

to ensure that women who do suffer rape come forward, are supported to

come forward, and that the police are, there is an insistence that the

police take accusations of rape more seriously. Why is that affected by

anonymity being granted to the accused? Because I think that, you

know, in many cases women are afraid, they are not confident about

the protection of their own anonymity. And I think that if you

look at this in the round, the priority for us as a society is the

protection of women who are subject to rape, and putting absolutely no

obstacle in the way of their coming forward and being supported to come

forward and bring cases of rape where they have suffered this

terrible sexual violence. What about when they haven't? I agree with

George Galloway, and the time has come for people accused of rape to

be granted anonymity until the end of the trial. If they are found

guilty, the name comes forward, but I cannot see why putting people

through this helps in any way to encourage women to come forward with

accusations. It seems to me that there is actually a huge number of

unjust accusations being made against people in our society. Most

of them do not hit the headlines. It is a living nightmare for many

teachers, and I think it is perfectly possible to have a fair

trial with the accused remaining anonymous. And I cannot see how we

can possibly justify the number of innocent people who are being put

through this. And of course, as many of them will say, there is this

muttering, no smoke without fire, mud sticks. These things are

perfectly true. What about the Stuart Hall case, where he pleaded

and said these were all lies. His name came out and other people

accused him and then he pleaded guilty. That is like saying that you

should hang people because there are people who will not commit murder

because they are terrified of being hanged. Our primary duty is to

protect the innocent and make sure they get a fair trial. I think,

given the way that the case ended, there was a clear lack of concrete

evidence. Mr Galloway touched on that. But these allegations have

potentially damaged women coming forward who genuinely have these

gripes. It makes you think, she is making it up. These sort of things,

the media intrusion into the accused and also the potential victim, it is

damaging to the real victims. It has been horrible for William Roache,

but what about the women who are scared to come forward because of

this? There are two points I would like to make. The first relates

specifically to the question, why was that idea of anonymity in the

coalition agreement? It was directly because of the intervention of an

old and dear friend of mine, Conrad Russell, who, when he was at York

College, dealt as a Chuter with exactly the kind of case we are

talking about. That is why it was there. The second thing is that we

have got into a hopeless confusion on the whole question of rape. The

word rape means violence. That is the Latin root. That is how it has

always existed in English. That is how it has always been understood.

What we have tried to do is to take that word, with -- with all of its

terrible associations, and apply it to a whole series of much more

awkward, much more difficult to establish, much more contested and

contentious sexual encounters, by focusing on the issue of consent,

which so often boils down, as it did in this case, to his word against

her word. Now, I cannot see that the law is at all good at dealing with

this. It really isn't. It works very badly. And I think it encourages

false accusation. It also encourages other things as well on the other

side. It's a very, very awkward, difficult law. We are in a state of

complete confusion about sexual etiquette, aren't we? Complete

confusion about what is right and what is wrong. We are trying to use

the law to change it, and you, Tessa, said something which I find

deeply shocking. You said our interest as a society is on bringing

forward more victims of rape. I am sorry, we have one interest in

society when the law is applied, and it is called justice. Justice is

blind, and justice is evenhanded. This sense of a very large female

Paul resting on one pan of the scale is bad and it is wrong, and it is

immoral. That is utterly reactionary Tosh. Rape does not have to involve

violence. No means no. If you proceed, it is a comma whether there

is violence involved or not. I am outraged at what you said, and so

will half the country B. Good, because it might make them think.

Just mouthing these things, no means no, I am not heterosexual. I have

been in very complex sexual situations, being gay. I know what

is involved, I know the complexities. No means no? In a

relationship in which sex is the norm, then clearly, nobody watching

this asks their wife verbally, would you like to have sex, dear, nobody

does that in relationships. Let's go back to the question. Matthew

Hancock, we have not heard from you. I think this case has been a

high-profile disaster. It has been a disaster both on its own terms and

for the impact on William Roache. But also because of how it has made

this very debate more difficult. Because the concept of open justice,

of everything being done in open in court is based on everybody taking

the opinion of innocent until proven guilty. And the problem in these

cases is precisely because of people not thinking of the perpetrators,

the alleged perpetrators, as innocent until proven guilty. And I

would rather try to establish the principle of innocent until proven

guilty, because of the downsides of ringing in anonymity, which

undoubtedly, making an accusation, if true, does bring forward other

victims. How do you achieve that? It is about the national culture. It

involves how the media respond. Innocent until proven guilty is an

important principle on which our whole justice system is built.

Talking about what George was saying, about asking your partner

for intercourse. Most girls would complain after a couple of months

that there is no spontaneous love, no care in the relationship, if you

are asking every 20 seconds if you want them. Where is the spontaneous

real love? We are on to the issue about what rape is, rather than

anonymity. William Roache was never going to be anonymous. He is too

famous. We should not use high profile cases to talk about a major

change in the law. As for people being confused, I think that is

rubbish. A man knows if he has had sex with a woman against her will,

and chateau does she. There is no confusion. -- and so does she.

I think, due to the media circus and frenzy that surrounded the cases, I

believe in the premise of innocent until proven guilty. The fact that

these are two famous household actors, they should be allowed to be

in court, and in both cases a trial jury should decide rather than the

press and the media. Tessa Jowell, do you want to come back, because

David Starkey laid into you? Not that I noticed. My test for this

is, does any change in the law make it less likely that some of the

young women that I represent, and who I know turn up at the local

hospital, go to the police, or they languish in school because something

horrific has happened to them, does it make it less likely that they are

going to come forward that the perpetrator is going to be charged

and they are going to be given the help that they need? And I think

that celebrity is a very bad moment at which to undertake a fundamental

change in the law. I think the lady who made that point, perhaps rather

better than I have, is the view that certainly represents what I want to

say. If anonymity was granted, why would it make people less likely to

come forward and accuse them? I think the absence of anonymity sets

a higher threshold. That is the first thing. A higher threshold for

somebody to be charged. I think also UC... Doesn't evidence do that? It

is tempting to bring full style is when you want to harm somebody and

hurt somebody. You do not care if they are acquitted. -- falls charges

when you want to harm somebody. Many women in this country has suffered

forms of sexual violence and never had the confidence to come forward.

This has no relationship to the issue of anonymity. I will hand this

argument over to you at home. Textual comments or use the red

button. We will move on to another question. How can state schools be

the same as private schools with half the funding and doubled the

pupils? Michael Gove said you should be able to walk into a school and

not be able to tell if it was private or state. Once upon a time,

the sort of school I went to, which was a local grammar school, was in

many ways indistinguishable from the middle right public school. I had

the sort of education that boys up and down the road had. I have the

same kind of extracurricular activities and the same enthusiasm

of staff. I had the same range of subjects. My school may do no

difference as to how I was treated when I got to Oxbridge. -- my school

made no difference. Some of the motives were good but many were

absolutely foul. We wilfully destroy our best schools in the public

sector. We have been running behind hand ever since. That is what

happened. George Galloway... If our state schools had the money, the

resources, the playing field is that the private schools have, our state

school playing fields are almost now all sold off by this government,

which knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. Then they

would be, many of them would be, the equal of private schools that we

perversely called public schools in our language. I speak all the time

at the very best of these private schools, where the cost of the

parents is in the case of Harrow ?32,000 a year. 35,000, I think, at

Eton. Errors are getting what they are paying for. They are not paying

it for nothing. -- parents are getting. They have wonderful school

teachers and facilities. Then I go back to Bradford and I can see we

are not getting what we pay for. We are being starved of the resources

and of the creativity from the centre, from the state, that would

rescue these schools and rescue these children, who are, of course,

the vast majority. I am very candid about this or that they'd might

cancel my next invitation to eat in or Harrow. We should abolish public

schools, starting with abolishing their charitable status. If it is a

charity, you get it deducted from your tax. These same comment, these

same idiots who never learn. You people never learn. You are on a

cycle of destruction. People like you. You quoted Shakespeare. I am

furious. The children in my constituency are amongst the worst

schools in the country. That leans, when they leave school, their life

chances, unlike you, will not reach these Elysium Fields of pop history

and academia that you have reached. I am absolutely furious about it. It

is my job to sound off about it. Every child has the same right to a

good education. Of course. Unconnected to how much money their

parents have got. The thing is, you are talking about getting rid of the

private school sector. Where do those children go? Do they go into

the state school sector and the classroom sizes go from 30 to 60?

That will not improve the situation. I am becoming something of an expert

on this question. My university is setting up a state school. We are

setting up a specialist mathematics School for 16 to 19-year-olds which

will be funded as a state school. At one level, you cannot do it with the

same amount of money as other state schools. If you are a private school

you have more money to play with. Private schools are caught in and

amenities arms race. One has one covered some wall so the next has to

have two covered summing. That is not what schools are about. We

believe we can create a school which is just as good, academically, and

in terms of encouraging creativity and excitement, that the best

schools do, with the sort of funding we can get. What has gone wrong in

Bradford? I think a lot of things have gone wrong in Bradford. I

suspect one of the major things that has happened in Bradford is very few

teachers have stayed in Bradford. One of the things I do believe that

both actually the previous Labour government which started in

academies and this government, which encourage free schools, has done, is

to create enthusiasm and energy for teachers. You get a good school when

you have a group of staff that give themselves a day and night for it.

On the present funding... It will not be eaten but can you produce a

really good school on the current funding? Yes, you can. It is a bit

unfair to automatically assume because it is a state school it is

not a good school. I am a teacher myself. There are lots of very good

teachers in the school I teach out. Just because you are in a private

school, it does not mean that teachers are better but they have a

lot better facilities and it makes it a lot easier. What is behind your

question? It is hard to compare when it is not on an even playing field.

You cannot say to a school where students paid ?30,000 a year, when

they have facilities out of this world, and compare it to a school

with one football pitch and maybe a couple of hard courts, it is not the

same. You cannot compare the two. Is his aspiration that you should not

be able to tell the right aspiration for a Secretary of State for

education or is it fatuous? At the moment, it is factual. I would love

the same facilities that private schools have. If that is the case,

maybe Mr Gove will give us more money and reduce class sizes and

give us more holidays. I agree with a lot of what you have said. You

have left out an essential question and so has Allison. The key thing

about public schools is the implied contract between the parents, the

teacher and the people. In other words, those pupils are there and

they will learn and there are virtually no disciplinary Robins. --

problems. My experience on Jamie 's dream school makes it clear that the

key issue is that of discipline. This is what Michael will share has

been on about and you must not insult peoples. -- the pupils. Good

teachers insult their pupils the whole of the time. Telling one he

was too fat to learn... I do not want to go down That Road any

further. Askew Hancock. I agree very strongly with the gentleman who just

spoke. This is a vision, obviously, not a reality now. The reason that

this is a goal towards which we should march is because it is

possible, doable, to have very high standards in the state sector, even

though obviously cash is much tighter. We know that even with

tight cash you can dramatically improve the standards because it has

happened. It has happened over the last five, ten years. I have paid

tribute to some of the Labour ministers. Some of the schools in

the worst areas of London are now some of the best schools in the

country and this is increasingly happening across the country. One

thing has not been mentioned yet and that is a core driver of how this

happens and that is expectations. These schools that have really

improved set very high expectations for every child - every child to

reach potential. Even if they are not naturally gifted or they have

had a difficult time so far, you set high standards and expectations and

huge challenge children to get to those expectations. Boy, have we

discovered through trial and error, that if you set high expectations

for children, more likely than not they reach them. I care passionately

about doing that in the state sector. There is a huge, huge golf

that we have got to get over. Can we move in that direction? Absolutely,

yes we can. What about the suggestion from George Galloway

about cutting the charitable status? I think there are two reasons it

would be a disaster. As the lady said, you would end up with more

people in the state sector. We do not have much cash in the state

sector. We are borrowing ?100 billion a year still. There is cash

for banks, cash for bankers bonuses, cash for tax cuts. You are giving it

away to your powers, your fellow public school boys and girls. That

is what you are doing with the cash. With the spectacles in the

background. You have not got spectacles on, that is my bad

eyesight. Frequently, the debate is more aimed at bringing the top down

rather than bringing the lower school back up. We should not be

caring down the top layer, we should be bringing below will air back up.

-- caring down. Surely, private schools will always want to be

better than public schools so it will always be a tit for tat. Great,

then they would all get better. You will spend more money on public

schools. Surely that will be a waste of money. This question touches on a

whole number of issues. It is absolutely not the case that all

public schools, all independent schools, are better than state

schools. There are fantastic state schools in which brilliant teachers

are teaching up and down the country, across London in my own

constituency. I think this is first of all an argument we should

reject. State means inferior in every case to private school. I

think the argument tends to be dominated by four or five very

famous high achieving, highly selective private schools that tend

to dominate the entrance to Oxford and Cambridge. What is it that makes

a good school? It is a combination of things. It is excellent

leadership by a motivated and brilliant head. It is also dedicated

staff. It is engaged parents. The other thing is, and I think this is

a really important thing, children go to school to learn, so that they

are informed, confident and so forth. The diversity of state

schools is what is teaching children to be citizens of the modern world.

That is what I think is so important and so incredibly uplifting about a

lot of our primary schools and a lot of our secondary schools. Of course

we have got to do better and do more. The ambition in a way never

stops because there are more children from disadvantaged, poorer

families, unmotivated families in state schools.

What did you make of Michael Gove's comparison of the state and private

system of having a burly and wall between them which he wanted to

knock down? I represent a constituency with a large number of

independent schools, and a large number of increasingly successful

state schools. So the comparison is wrong? Also, I think this assumption

that you walk into an independent school and fine excellence, and you

walk into a state school and find mediocrity is deeply insulting and

untrue. There will always be a difference between private schools

and state schools. The cultures are different. But I think Michael

Gove's point was that he is trying to say that the standards, the gap

in standards can be closed. One of the examples he gave was a longer

school day, which is what they do in private schools, extracurricular

activities, help with home works and stuff like that, which would help

people from poorer backgrounds, and also discipline. David Starkey

mentioned that, and it is a huge thing that needs to be migrated from

the private to the state school more, where there is a gap. We are

going to go on. A question from Joan Morris. Should workers in essential

services be refused the right to strike? Matthew Hancock, thinking of

the current difficulties that have brought London to a halt for 48

hours. Many of us were delayed on the way down here. I support the

trade union movement and I work with the trade union movement, for

instance, on expanding apprenticeships. And I think that

they are badly served by their bosses. Because there was not a

majority of trade unionists who voted for this action. The majority

of trade -- of workers on the tube did not vote for this action and

were driven into it by their bosses. And I think that we do need to look

at the way that those votes take place. We also need to think about

whether essential services can be brought to a standstill. For

instance, the police cannot strike because you would not want a moment

when all of the police in the country were not at work. Are you in

favour of essential services being refused the right to strike? I

believe the New York subway have no right to strike. I think we need to

consider it. What does that mean? Well, I do not think we should do it

in the midst of a strike which has been so destructive. Why not, is

that not the right moment? On the one hand, we need to balance the

right to withdraw your labour, but just as important and, I would say

this week, more important, is the ability to keep our country going

and the ability for people to be able to get on with their lives. The

strike this week has shown that, despite the fact that a majority did

not vote for it, they managed to have a big disruptive impact,

meaning doctors have been unable to get in to treat patients, teachers

have been unable to get into schools to teach. I think this strike was

absolutely wrong and we need to look at whether we need to change the

rules about it. Do you want the right to strike refused?

Personally, I think members of the London Underground who decide to

strike, I think it is an essential service. If you look at horrific

situations, such as a terrorist attack, you look at those

supervisors, the number of people in stations who helped to evacuate

people who were in the tunnels, who were in those moments, those crucial

moments, where they were then supported by emergency services, you

can see the focus and the importance of that service, and you can see the

importance of it to London as a financial capital. The real losers

at the end of the day are going to be the millions of Londoners who

have not got to work, are unable to get to work. The economy then

suffers. To be honest, personally, I find the fact that the RMT officials

have not really met properly with Boris Johnson, there is a breakdown

in communications, frankly ridiculous. This is what happens

when you elect a clown is the Mayor of London. And it's not very funny.

And the suffering that has occurred over the last 48 hours is not funny

for anybody. It's not funny for the workers, who had to lose two days

pay over it. By the way, the workers voted to strike. I wouldn't like

anyone to be misled. You support trade unions like the rope supports

a hanging man. The truth is that Boris Johnson provoked this strike

by issuing a Fiat to close every ticket office in London and make

hundreds of people redundant, without negotiating with the people

who are paid to represent the interests of the staff. It is not

rocket science. Five years, Boris Johnson has not met with the leaders

of the RMT. This is contempt, Tory contempt for working people and

their organisations. And in the final analysis, working people only

have their labour to withdraw. They don't have your money. They don't

have the money that the people in the City of London have. They don't

have any power except their own they buy power and the right, legally,

democratically, to decide to withdraw it for a day or two. Only

30% of members of the RMT voted for this strike. You are assuming the

others are against it. Only 30% of people voted for Boris Johnson. The

plan is reasonable and not to close every ticket office. It is to close

every single ticket office on the London Underground. You do not even

know what your own mayor is doing. That's just not true. Also, it is

well covered by people applying for voluntary redundancy. It's a

perfectly reasonable plan and there is no reasonable argument for

bringing London to a halt. Firstly, I think it is unfair of you to

suggest that people are just striking to prevent people getting

to work. They are striking because they are angry. If politicians are

going to say they will only consider helping them in the future, it is no

wonder they want to strike to begin with.

I totally support the right of anyone to take strike action, but

the London Underground is one of the most expensive underground systems

in Europe. Surely this is a way of improving efficiency on the

Underground system and hopefully reducing the fares. Let's come to

the issue of whether it is so important there should be no right

to strike in this and other essential services. Generally, the

rule is that there should be no right to strike. What is happening

in this strike and has happened in the London Underground over the last

15 to 20 years is a process of pure extortion. Bob Crow is not an

ineffective trade union leader. Bob Crow. The large fat man with the

pinochle larder. He is an incredibly effective trade union leader. They

are paid ?52,000 a year. Heaven forbid! How much do you earn? A lot

more than that for a less owner is job. They could be replaced by a

dummy. Most of the trades are designed to run automatically. --

most of the trains. They are designed to run automatically as

every subway system in the world is increasingly doing. London

Underground has been mismanaged by Ken Livingstone and by the current

mayor. Ken Livingstone deliberately encouraged the trade unions. Boris

is a hopeless administrator. Ken Livingstone is a maligned genius.

Transport for London needs shaking up from top to bottom. The reason

the fares are scanned the list the expensive is mismanagement on an

unbelievable scale. -- scandalously expensive. Is it so essential that

the law that applies to the police and the military that they are not

allowed to strike should apply? In any other European country, it would

be. We are the only country in Europe without a coherent body of

law defining essential services, and defining what you have to do in the

event of a strike. It is not about never being allowed to strike, but

if you do go on strike there is a basic minimum you are obliged to

maintain. I was astonished. Every country in Europe except us as a

clear body of law relating to that, and it includes public transport in

large cities. What would the effect be in London? It would mean you have

to keep the service going on every line-out is certainly a full. It

would have meant that people who really had to get around occurred.

In terms of withdrawing labour, I have friends who have lost large

amounts of money because their businesses effectively had no

takings over the last two days. It is pure extortion, a protection

racket. They are essential because they are essential to allowing other

people to carry out their normal life, essential to allowing people

to get to doctors appointments, get to school, to work, to businesses.

Tessa Jowell, you may be the person who challenges the Mayor of London.

Many people tip you to be Mayor of London. If you were Mayor of London,

what would you do? First of all, I would not support withdrawing the

right to strike from public sector workers. In response to Alison's

point, I got the Chu, the bus yesterday. It was inconvenient, long

delays, but it was possible. It met your standard of a basic service.

But I think withdrawing the right to strike assumes that public sector

workers undertake industrial action in a kind of reckless, unthinking

way, and they don't. Bob Crow does. David, stop it! This was a strike

that was completely preventable had, first of all, Boris Johnson not

broken the promised that he made when he was elected. He promised

that no ticket offices would be closed. I actually think that there

is a case for getting people out of ticket offices and out on the

platforms. All of that could have been negotiated, had we not had the

farce of Boris Johnson and Bob Crow. The only way they could talk to each

other was by phoning LBC and having their discussion mediated. That is

not the way to do it. Boris stood on a clear platform of modernising the

Chu. You know why we need to modernise the Chu. He promised to

keep the ticket offices. In 2010, the mayor takes his promises to

London extremely seriously. Every station that has a ticket office

will continue to have one. Statement from City Hall. The question is, how

many people do you put in ticket offices? And our people bet on the

station platforms, this is the proposal, on station platforms

helping people? Only 3% of the travelling public use the ticket

offices. So why did he go out on a limb to say every station will have

a ticket office? Because there will still be places you can go in each

station. You are struggling there! No, I am very clear. There will be

people available for when people have difficulties. This is called

the student loans moment! The important thing is that then we

could keep the prices down. You cannot keep the travelling public

moving at a reasonable cost if you set everything in stone and say

that, when 97% of people who used London Underground do not go through

a ticket office, we need to have because Bob Crow says so. Everyone

should have the right to strike. It depends on a job. What about the

firefighters? You have said everyone should have the right to strike. Are

you saying the police should have the right to strike? Well, yes. The

threat of that strike should make decisions. I do not think it is wise

to insult the audience, David. I will take one more point. I think

the most important thing in this is being lost. The people involved in

the underground, who work for TEFL, are being completely forgotten. You

have to eat goes dominating the argument. The media are spinning it

to be a Bob Crowe versus Boris Johnson. If you take away the

peoples right to strike, what else do they have? If the unions are not

working, what protection is that for common man? Have you heard of

employment law? Do you know the huge structure of employment protection

that exists? Strikes in the public sector are extortion against you and

me. That is why they are paid 52,000 a year. Some underground workers

earn 52,000 a year. The drivers, who do nothing. 52,000 is a bad month 's

bonus for a banker in London. Give me a cheap driver, that is a

responsible and important job. If the bankers went on strike, we would

all be better off. Now for another question. Why are there still so few

women in Parliament? This issue surfaced yesterday in the House of

Commons when the Labour front bench seemed to be entirely made up of

women and the Tory front bench seem to not have one single women on it.

Much was made of this. Why are there still so few women in Parliament?

Labour has 34% of its membership and the Conservatives about 16. After

the next election, we hope that proportion will increase. My party,

the Labour Party, has since 1993/94, being impatient to increase the

number of women. Why is it important? When you look at

Parliament and are at the receiving end of the laws we were talking

about rape earlier, that Parliament passes, you can be confident they

are made by a parliament that is representative of the country. A

balance between men and women. You know, it does not happen. The

Liberal Democrats and the Tories have been very critical of us in

doing this. It does not happen and if you have a period of positive

action. We have all women short lists. That is why we have a bigger

proportion of women in parliament than any of the other parties. These

are constituencies where you do not allow men to stand. It is half hour

winnable seats. Almost in every case, I think in every case, we will

replace women who are standing down with all women short lists. Half

hour winnable seats will have short lists. We live in great hope and

strong campaigning. I hope that this can change. I am a passionate

supporter of having more women in Parliament. What is the answer as to

why there are so few? There is the question about passage of time.

People tend to be in Parliament for a long time. The Conservative Party

went from 17 women to 48 women when we first introduced positive action

to get more women into Parliament. It does take time. There is another

reason as well. In the past, the way Parliament has operated, frankly,

has been antifamily. It has been designed on a principle of

19th-century -- a 19th-century principle with folks at 10pm,

10:30pm in the evening. I was proud to campaign amongst MPs to change

the sitting hours so we could start earlier in the day and finish at

7pm. That is not desperately early but it does help with those who have

families and it helps with the work/ life balance, so you can then go

home. Changing the way that Parliament operates to make it more

family friendly will help. What about the match in masculine culture

we see on display every Prime Minister's Questions on a Wednesday?

What about the way that Prime Minister is on both sides conduct

their business and the Corsa two of Cabinet members who are women. The

proportion of Conservative Cabinet ministers is the same as was under

Gordon Brown. I wish it were higher. I imagine it will be higher.

I do not want to predict who will be in the cabinet in the future but I

wish it were higher. Taking action will take time but we have got to

get that. The man up there... Seeing more women in politics will be

wonderful. I do not think having all women short lists is the way to go

about it. I think it is a deeply patronising gesture. I think women

should go into politics on their own merit. They are more than capable of

competing with men. We're not going to see all homosexual short lists or

Asian short lists. Women should get into Parliament on their own merit.

I totally agree. I am against all women short lists. You can have half

and half short lists. I do not think that makes it representative. I have

never understood why a female who has gone to Oxford and go straight

into politics is more representative of a country than a male. I think

that is an artificial way of doing it and it does not encourage really

good women to come forward. As to why there are so few, I think it is

partly time and that things will improve. It is partly, curiously

enough, on the conservative side, a reluctance for females to be

selected as candidates. That is part of a changing culture. I think it

will always be difficult to get women who are in their 30s and 40s

and have children to be active Members of Parliament and do the job

properly. The reality is it is a very demanding job. It is not just

about our culture. I am full of aberration for people who managed to

do it and doubly for people who managed to do it with children. --

admiration. One of the best ways to increase numbers of women in

Parliament would be if we were ageist. If we were to encourage

people in their 50s to go into Parliament, rather than it being

seen so much as a full-time job which you start doing when you are

18 and do carry on doing it. I think that would do a huge amount for the

balance. It should be done on an individual 's ability to stand as an

MP. It discriminates against men with a women 's short list. I want

to see more working class people in Parliament. Parliament is full,

unfortunately, in all three parties, of public school, young,

careerists, like Matthew, God bless him. I hope he does well but that is

what he is. Parliament is full of researchers, who go from a good

school to Oxford University and you can see them looking at the older

Members of Parliament walking across the tea room, wondering whether they

are going to fall over and there might be a by-election and they can

get a place. I want to see positive discrimination in favour of better

Members of Parliament who do not fill their pockets at the public 's

expense of charging their dinner, charging scatter cushions, charging

to get notes cleared out. Why are there still so few women? We have

had women. Margaret Thatcher was the woman and it did not make her any

good. Tessa and her friends told us for years in the Labour Party, if

only we could get more women into Parliament, there would be fewer

wars, less aggression. There were 101 Blair babes elected and all but

three of them voted for every war that Tony Blair took us into. I am

not big on this. I sort of agree with George. I think we need to ask

some very hard questions. Why is it so important that there be an even

balance between men and women? Why do we not have a similar quotient

for Asians, homosexuals, left-handed people or whatever? If we demand

that Parliament reflects us, that is a question worth asking. What is it

that women actually bring? This needs answering and it needs

thinking about. Are we talking simply about social justice? Are we

saying, as George was hinting, that women are supposed to do it

differently? My sense in politics is that successful women are at least

as brutal and nasty as successful men. Margaret Thatcher is an

outstanding example. Some of our very worst ministers have been

women. Please let's confront this. Nobody is stopping you. We had left

down Morris, who at least had the merit of realising she could not do

the job and decide within a year. She knew she could not do it. And we

had Jacqui Smith, who is probably the worst Home Secretary ever and

was, of course, sprouting the trough in the largest possible way. Women

are not a panacea. They do not bring a miracle or do mysterious good. Can

we all start to be adult and think? On that note, we have to stop

because the hour is up. Sky one more thing. David Cameron has had more

people for dinner called Michael than he has women. So, why don't we

start a twitter campaign nominating women to have dinner with the Prime

Minister? All right. Prizes for the list of my

calls. And the women. Time is up. Next week we go to Scunthorpe in

Lincolnshire. The week after that we will be in Swindon. Take your choice

of Scunthorpe or Swindon. The website gives the address you can

apply to all call us. If you have been listening to us on

the radio, the argument goes on. Thank you to the panel and all of

you who came to take part in Gillingham. Good night.