Click here to view this media David Letterman and the crew at the Late Show’s “scheduling guide for the GOP debates.” And all joking aside, here’s a tweet from AlterNet’s Joshua Holland shortly after the last Republican debate. enlarge As someone who does media monitoring for the site, I’ll just say, I concur.
Continue reading …
Click here to view this media David Letterman and the crew at the Late Show’s “scheduling guide for the GOP debates.” And all joking aside, here’s a tweet from AlterNet’s Joshua Holland shortly after the last Republican debate. enlarge As someone who does media monitoring for the site, I’ll just say, I concur.
Continue reading …
Click here to view this media David Letterman and the crew at the Late Show’s “scheduling guide for the GOP debates.” And all joking aside, here’s a tweet from AlterNet’s Joshua Holland shortly after the last Republican debate. enlarge As someone who does media monitoring for the site, I’ll just say, I concur.
Continue reading …France’s young Socialists back François Hollande to reignite fires of 1968
October 15, 2011 No Comment
A new fervour on the left has propelled Mr Normal into pole position in the final round of the presidential primaries The celebrated Bataclan nightclub in the edgy 11th arrondissement of Paris was stiflingly hot and, even by its own standards, it was heaving. A young crowd in the audience cheered, shouted, applauded and whistled – a not unusual racket in a cutting-edge venue that once hosted an unknown Edith Piaf and, more recently, Pete Doherty. Avant-garde bands and cult rock stars pull them in here. After the music, the youngsters will spill out on to the streets and talk will invariably turn to late-night parties and where to go next. Last week, however, the Bataclan hosted an unlikely headline act: a balding, bespectacled man in a spectacularly dull suit whose nickname is Mr Normal. And the excited chatter was of political parties, where next for France, and who will triumph in the second, deciding round of the Socialist party primaries, which takes place today. “François, president. François, president,” shouted the crowd, supporting their favourite presidential candidate, François Hollande . Outside on the pavement, others watched on a hastily installed television screen. When France’s Socialists announced months ago that for the first time they would hold American-style primary elections to choose a presidential candidate, the process promised to be worthy, admirable even, but dull. Instead, it appears to have kindled the political fire in a new generation of voters. It helped that among the six candidates were two newish, youngish faces: Arnaud Montebourg, 48, the surprise runner who beat the Socialists’ 2007 presidential candidate, Ségolène Royal,to take third place in the first round last Sunday, and Manuel Valls, 49, who finished just behind Royal. The injection of new blood into a party once said to be run by “elephants”, combined with profound disappointment in the country’s current leaders, and in particular the deeply unpopular Nicolas Sarkozy, appears to have inspired a wave of youngsters on the left. After 17 years of rightwing rule, they are ravenous for change. Their grandparents’ generation took to the streets, throwing up barricades and calling for education reforms and an overthrow of the “old” society in the May 1968 student uprisings . Their parents’ generation came of age during the 14-year leadership of Socialist François Mitterrand, the Fifth Republic’s only Socialist president. Today’s young Socialists are hoping for their own revolution during the presidential vote next May. They also worry about education and the environmental issues that came to the fore in the 1980s, but above all they are galvanised by the worsening economic crisis and fears of how it will affect their chances of getting a job and affording a place to live. Florence Assan, 21, a medical student who has been campaigning for Hollande’s main rival for the party nomination, Martine Aubry, says the Socialist primaries have given a voice to the young. Unusually, the primary vote was opened to any adult who paid €1 to the Socialist party and pledged support for leftwing values, but also to teenagers aged 15-18 if they were registered with Young Socialist organisations. “Most of our lives all we have known is the right in power,” says Assan. “Now we want change. We want politics to put people – including young people – at its heart.” Sylvain Lobry, 20, an engineering student, agrees. “They said we were the generation that had turned its back on politics, but we have proved this wrong. The primary elections have proved this wrong. Even if we don’t win [the presidential election], we will have done something extraordinary.” Hugo Hanry, 17, a lycée student, admits to being both impatient and confident for the result of the decisive second-round vote. He plans to vote for Aubry. “There is a renewal happening. Young people are becoming more and more interested, and more and more involved in politics. The Socialist party primaries have been an excellent democratic exercise,” he says. Last Sunday, at a polling station in the 3rd arrondissement of Paris, as left-leaning residents queued to vote in the first round, the atmosphere was almost festive. Families turned out with young children in tow, while jovial young Socialist activists hovered looking for an excuse to engage in conversation. Asked about turnout or predictions, they tapped furiously into BlackBerrys and iPhones before producing answers correct to two decimal points. “This is the home run,” said one young man. To the primaries or the presidential? “Hopefully both,” he replied. At the Socialist party headquarters at Solférino on the Left Bank, Anthony Aly, spokesman for the Young Socialists Movement, and others he refers to as “camarades” were hunkering down behind the security gates as riot police gathered to see off a demonstration by members of the far-right National Front. “I’m told they’re angry because we are giving foreigners the chance to vote in the primaries,” he says, adding: “But the fact we opened up these elections for the first time to people who were not party members and young militants has provoked a great deal of interest among young voters.” Frédéric Dabi, of the French opinion pollsters Ifop, said surveys had shown that most of the 2.5 million French voters who turned out last Sunday to choose a Socialist candidate were over 50. However, he added: “It’s true that because two of the candidates were relatively young, and because both François Hollande and Martine Aubry made issues concerning youngsters, like education, key to their campaigns, there has been a renewal of interest in politics among the young.” Back at the Bataclan, Hollande, the man who would be president, is responding to the adulation with republican France’s equivalent of the royal wave, the two-handed bring-it-on gesture footballers use when they have scored. The crowd roar, jump to their feet and begin chanting
Continue reading …Mitt Romney leads the charge as Mormonism moves into the American mainstream
October 15, 2011 No Comment
With two Mormons contending for the presidency and a growing media profile, the church has never been so popular – nor so closely scrutinised The stone-clad building stands on a busy intersection in the heart of Manhattan’s Upper West Side. There is little to distinguish it from any other modern place of worship in New York: it has a simple design, subtly decorated windows and a modest spire – one topped by a golden statue of a trumpet-wielding angel. And that is the difference: the angel, unfamiliar to most Christians, is called Moroni. The building is the Manhattan temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, better known around the world as the Mormons. There are other temples scattered throughout New York, serving a growing community in the city of one of the world’s youngest but fastest-spreading faiths. Normally associated with the desert mountains of Utah, where it has its headquarters, the church’s 6 million-plus members are rapidly rising to prominence in America’s consciousness: two Mormons are running for the Republican presidential nomination. Indeed, Mitt Romney is a frontrunner in that race and by 2013 the US could have a Mormon president. There are already 15 Mormons in Congress, including Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid. Rightwing media firebrand Glenn Beck is a Mormon. So is rock star Brandon Flowers, lead singer of the Killers, and former Utah governor Jon Huntsman, contending with Romney for the Republican nomination. Mormons run businesses such as hotel chain Marriott International, and shows about them – such as the HBO drama Big Love – are television hits. For a faith that has often been persecuted, Mormonism, it seems, has never been more American. “I am not only a New Yorker and a Mormon, but I am proud to be so. I have raised a family here,” says David Buckner, a business consultant who worships at the Manhattan temple. For Buckner, 48, who has called New York home since 1995, the city and Mormonism are a perfect fit. “There is a deep respect for different religions here in New York. People are respectful of our mores and values.” That is not true everywhere. Robert Jeffress, a leading conservative Baptist minister with links to Romney’s rival for the nomination Rick Perry, recently launched a blistering attack on the faith, calling it a “cult” and saying it is “not Christianity”. Others appear to view the emergence of Mormonism into everyday life with nervousness: a poll in June found one in five US voters would oppose a Mormon candidate for president. Nor is that a reflection of concern only on the religious right. Mormonism takes a strong view against gay marriage: it has provided financial backing for campaigns to stop same-sex couples getting full married rights, notably in California in 2008. The church’s actions triggered nationwide protests by campaigners. Fred Karger, a gay Republican running at the back of the pack in the 2012 nomination race, has become a vocal critic of Mormonism. “My major concern with the Mormon faith is the basic tenet of obedience. If a President Romney got a call from the president of the LDS [Latter Day Saints], he has no choice but to obey. It is obedience over family and country,” he says. That comment echoes criticisms levelled at President Kennedy, when his Catholicism – and theoretical obligation to the papacy – came under attack. But it also raises the questions of just what Mormons believe in and where the swiftly spreading religion comes from. “In general, a lot of Americans know very little about the Mormon faith,” says David Cohen, a political scientist at the University of Akron. It began in the 1820s in upstate New York when the church’s founder, Joseph Smith, claimed to have discovered a holy work, inscribed on a set of golden plates, called the Book of Mormon . It included an account of Jesus appearing in the US. Smith drew together a group of followers and, fleeing persecution, began a movement west before being killed by a mob in Illinois. His successors settled in Utah and continued the church’s controversial acceptance of polygamy, allowing men to take multiple wives. The modern church, however, has long condemned plural marriages, though it continues with several practices at variance with other Christian faiths. For example, many members wear special underwear, known as “temple garments”. The church also places special emphasis on converting the dead: because of their belief that families are eternal, Mormons feel a duty to posthumously baptise ancestors so that all may be together in heaven. That is why the church is behind a huge genealogical effort to collect family histories. Sometimes boundaries are overstepped in the tracing of ancestors. The church became embroiled in controversy after Holocaust victims were found on its databases. In 2009, it was discovered that Barack Obama’s recently deceased mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, had been posthumously baptised. Of course, while to non-Mormons much of this can seem strange, the same could be said about many traditional practices of other faiths. What Mormonism is dealing with is not its beliefs, but its newness. Other religions’ prophets lived hundreds or thousands of years ago and have become an accepted part of human culture. Mormonism was born in the industrial era. Its expansion is coming at a time of iPhones and the internet, and its entry into the mainstream is bound to involve scrutiny of its agenda. “The church is eager for it to be better known and a bigger player. They see that as part of their churchly mission,” says Matthew Burbank, a political expert at the University of Utah. The LDS is also nothing if not media-savvy. It has launched an ad campaign to “normalise” its image, with portraits of people from diverse backgrounds under the slogan “I’m a Mormon”. “There’s a national conversation going on about Mormonism and we want to be a part of it,” says LDS spokesman Eric Hawkins. But it is not hard to find Mormons in Manhattan. Take Natalie Hill, 30, a Broadway dancer. She does not drink or smoke, which the faith discourages, but that does not interfere with her enjoyment of New York; she even pens a blog called Mormon in Manhattan . “People are sometimes afraid of what they don’t know,” she says. “I am just like every other New Yorker, but I have a deep faith that roots me in where I come
Continue reading …Gaddafi loyalists hold out in last desperate resistance at Sirte, as families flee
October 15, 2011 No Comment
The war in Libya is almost over, but for ordinary people in Sirte’s District 2 the misery gets deeper When war came to the Libyan coastal city of Sirte, Muammar Gaddafi’s birthplace, Fajla Sidi Bey made the sort of choice that poor people have to make in a conflict. Fajla, a Malian driver who worked at the Ibn Sana hospital when the besieging government forces announced their intention to take Sirte in September, was owed 3,736 Libyan dinars, a small fortune. So while others fled he stayed in the city with his five children, aged between four months and nine years old, and his wife and a cousin. His home was in District 2, at the heart of the last remaining pocket of pro-Gaddafi loyalist fighters, still being pounded yesterday by artillery and anti-aircraft guns. Until Friday that is, when Fajla and his family slipped out. I found them sitting by a wall near the field hospital outside the city, uncertain what to do or where to go. “I left the hospital on 15 September, the day the fighting started,” he explained. “I haven’t been back since. I came to Libya 13 years ago to earn money. For 10 of those, I worked as a tailor. For the last three years, I worked in the hospital.” He showed his pass from Ibn Sana. It described him as a driver and a tailor. “The only time I went out of my house was to search for food for my children. I had a car from the hospital. After a while, they would not let me get food from the shops. All the shops were closed. They said: ‘Bring your family to the security building.’ Outside was a place where you could buy food. “We were in my house with another Malian family of three and hid in the basement. Most days I slept and hid in my house. I did not know what was happening outside. ‘We were lucky. Nothing happened to our house. All the other houses around ours were hit by shells and missiles. Most of the houses were empty. They fired during the day, but not after seven at night. Then it was quieter. “There was water, but we had no electricity. I was not frightened for myself but for my children and my family. Every day we talked about escaping. My life was in the hands of God. “Then three days ago the other family went and did not return. So on Friday, before seven in the morning, I went out of the house and walked 100 metres. No one fired at me, so I went back for the family and we walked out with the clothes that we were wearing. Then some government fighters picked us up and took us here. “I would have left Libya in February,” he added sadly. “But I needed the money.” Details of conditions for civilians and pro-Gaddafi troops in the last pocket held by Gaddafi fighters in Sirte’s District 2, a coastal strip no wider than 700
Continue reading …
Government officials admit that just two dedicated specialists have been assigned to new initiative on trafficking Children’s charities have accused the government of failing to fulfil a pledge to devote more resources to tracing thousands of children who go missing in the UK each year. Three months after ministers announced a high-profile initiative led by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (Ceop) to help find missing youngsters, officials admit that only two dedicated specialists have been specifically assigned to the scheme. According to government officials, the initiative was intended to ensure a “national lead” was taken in tracking missing children. Home Office minister James Brokenshire said that 230,000 missing children reports were recorded in the UK every year and that it was “crucial we can act quickly”. But children’s charities say the scheme is under-resourced and its strategy unclear, pointing to the fact that there is no evidence of a single child being found as a direct result of its new responsibility. The only specific appeal launched by the agency to date is for Madeleine McCann, who went missing aged three on holiday in Portugal four and a half years ago. Christine Beddoe, director of the anti-trafficking charity Ecpat UK, said: “We’ve still no idea how the scheme pulls together – there is no information being circulated about the brief.” Meanwhile, before the official anti-slavery day this Tuesday, details of a new scheme designed to cut the number of children vanishing from care – particularly victims of trafficking – have been unveiled. A policy document by the Conservatives in 2008 estimated that “over half of trafficked children disappear from social services”. As many children recorded missing later return home or are found, experts believe an estimated 140,000 children go missing in the UK every year. The Ceop-backed Counter Human-Trafficking Bureau (CHTB), yet to be officially unveiled, says its anti-child trafficking plans would improve the protection and identification of vulnerable children in care at risk of going missing. The plans incorporate a national database that would enable social workers to upload, update and share trafficking assessments of vulnerable children throughout the UK. If evidence emerges that traffickers are attempting to target care homes or make contact with children, the authorities are immediately alerted. Philip Ishola, policy adviser for the CHTB, said the scale of the challenge was evident from intelligence work by police revealing that children had phone numbers and maps sewn into their clothing in case they were caught by the authorities. He said: “Nowadays they are even better primed and have been forced to memorise numbers and pick-up points. “For some communities, the incidence of disappearance from local authority care is high. With the Vietnamese trafficking gangs for instance, it’s as high as 90% because they use extreme control techniques: direct extreme violence to victims and threats to their families.” Ishola said that a specialist social work team would undertake independent assessments of suspected victims of human trafficking with the results fed directly to police. Peter Dolby, co-founder of the bureau, was confident the scheme would address the number of children going missing and who are never found. Hundreds of child-trafficking victims who have disappeared from care have yet to be found. “Failure means children being left at the mercy of serious organised criminal gangs and child abusers, a situation that goes against the British value of social justice and children’s rights,” he said. Among events planned this week to mark anti-slavery day, new research will indicate that domestic servitude remains a growing problem in the UK. During the two years before March this year 895 cases of trafficked workers were reported to the authorities. Labour MP and former Home Office minister Fiona Mactaggart said: “Unless there is a completely relentless focus on protecting children then they are not going to be protected.” A Ceop spokesman said other recruits for the missing children’s unit would be sought “when they are needed and when the programme gets up to full speed”. Child protection Children Human trafficking Police Mark Townsend guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Support for Dragons’ Den star, who says he is ‘wholly non-party political’, has risen in an increasingly acrimonious campaign If Ireland elects Sean Gallagher as its next president in less than a fortnight’s time it will be akin to the UK replacing the Queen with Duncan Bannatyne as its head of state. Gallagher is instantly recognised across the country because he was one of the famous faces of the Irish version of TV show Dragons’ Den. He joins a leading pack of three presidential contenders that includes former IRA chief of staff Martin McGuinness, who has faced controversial questions relating to his past, in particular having presided over an organisation that killed nearly 2,000 people during the Troubles. Despite constant queries over his leadership of the Provisional IRA, McGuinness has scored between 16 and more than 20% in opinion polls. The Observer has learnt that a Dublin newspaper is to publish extracts of a tape recording McGuinness gave to an American radio reporter in the 1970s in which the then self-confessed second in command of the Derry Provisionals describes civilians caught up in bombs and shootings as “nosey parkers” who should not have got in the way of IRA operations. The Sinn Féin MP will also face challenges from opponents this week to publicly reverse an oath of allegiance he swore to the IRA in the 1970s which refused to recognise the legitimacy of the southern Irish state or its security forces. While McGuinness remains one of the most famous faces in one of the most controversial presidential elections in Irish history, Gallagher has accepted that TV fame as a Dragon has also been part of the reason he has become the dark horse in the race. On Friday morning, Gallagher, who has been enjoying rising support in opinion polls, called on Moneygall in Co Offaly to seek the imprimatur of another famous president – or at least Barack Obama’s distant Irish relations. During a tour of the village Obama traces his Irish roots back to, Gallagher received the backing of the most powerful man on the planet’s cousin several times removed. Henry Healy, who was instrumental in tracking Obama’s family back to Moneygall and bringing him to the village, said he could relate to Gallagher. “He has emphasised building up local communities and reviving business activity in Ireland. If Sean is elected president, he will know what he is doing on trade missions around the world promoting Irish business. Sean is a businessman who understands the pressures people are under in this recession. That is why he is the best man for the job.” Asked if his famous relative in the White House was keeping an on eye on the Irish presidential race, Healy said: “I’ll write and ask him to accept Sean’s invitation for another visit to Ireland. They will make a great double act.” After meeting parents from a local school who had organised a fund-raising “skipathon”, Gallagher told the Observer that his profile as a Dragon “had been very helpful.” However, the 49-year-old entrepreneur said he was well known throughout the state before his appearance on Dragons’ Den. “I am recognised because of my work with communities and organisations representing disabled people before being on the programme. What I want to do for the economy is what Mary McAleese did for the peace process during her presidency. I have on-the-ground experience of creating jobs and building communities. My ambition is to work alongside the government in bringing jobs and investment to Ireland during this recession.” Born with congenital cataracts, Gallagher was almost blind as a child and only pioneering surgery saved his sight. He went on to become one of Ireland’s most famous self-made men and now owns a home technology business worth €10bn that employs 70 people. Gallagher denied that his former membership of Fianna Fáil – the party in government during the boom, later punished severely at this year’s general election for the economic crash – would turn off voters. “My message is wholly non-party political. I am an independent and I want to represent all the people of Ireland,” he added. At this stage it appears the contest to succeed Mary McAleese as the country’s next president is between Labour’s frontrunner and former arts minister Michael D Higgins, Gallagher and McGuinness. McGuinness’s campaign has been dogged with questions over his role as a Provisional IRA commander. The Sinn Féin MP has said he left the IRA in 1974 – a claim challenged by, among others, a former head of the Garda Síochána who insisted he was still on the organisation’s supreme decision making “army council” until at least the late 1990s. The campaign became even more acrimonious on Wednesday night during a live debate on RTE television when Ireland’s answer to Jeremy Paxman, the presenter Miriam O’Callaghan, asked McGuinness how he squared his Catholicism with supporting IRA murders. McGuinness complained to RTE that he had been subjected to “trial by television” and demanded a one-to-one meeting with O’Callaghan after the broadcast. Terry Prone, Ireland’s most prominent PR and communications expert, said she believed McGuinnness had made a fatal error: “His core vote will be solidified by a sense of injustice. His floating vote, on the other hand, would have begun to ship water and the episode radically reduced his capacity to attract transfers. Not so much because of his rage on screen, but because, after the programme, he attacked ‘one of our own’. Irrespective of your view of Miriam O’Callaghan, she is a respected constant in the minds of the Irish public – their representative on TV, and a woman. An enraged McGuinness demanding – and getting – a post-programme private meeting with her argued a coercive sense of entitlement which did him no good at all.” Ireland Europe Martin McGuinness Dragons’ Den Sinn Féin Henry McDonald guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Chancellor backs move to boost the IMF’s bailout fund, provided a deal to stabilise the eurozone can be reached British taxpayers may have to find more cash to prop up the ailing euro after George Osborne backed a move to increase the size of the global bailout fund to rescue indebted European countries. The chancellor, speaking at the G20 summit in Paris, said he was willing to consider a plan to increase the International Monetary Fund’s firepower, provided a rescue deal had been agreed that would bring the two-year sovereign debt crisis to an end. Pumping more money into the Washington-based lender was “no substitute”, he said, for European leaders hammering out the package of financial measures required to restore stability in the eurozone. Osborne’s qualified support for the creation of a larger global safety net could see the UK commit further loans to the IMF, though officials said a comprehensive rescue deal would make extra demands unlikely. His remarks were designed to support moves by G20 finance ministers to arrive at a definitive solution to the crisis while appeasing rightwing Tory MPs who have voiced concerns about extending further loans to the eurozone. His comments came as European leaders continued to wrangle over the size and shape of the fund required to bail out Greece and prevent Italy and Spain from collapse. The make-or-break moment could come at a summit of EU leaders next Sunday (23 October) when Germany and France have promised to set out a plan that would stop the debt crisis spreading to other countries, protect Europe’s embattled banks and prevent the global economy from tipping back into recession. German chancellor Angela Merkel has refused to be drawn on whether the package will amount to the “big bazooka” demanded by financial markets. Last week she played down speculation that the €440bn European financial stability facility (EFSF) agreed by all eurozone countries would be expanded to nearer €2 trillion. The EFSF has the resources to cope with bailouts for Greece, Portugal and Ireland, but unless enlarged would be overwhelmed by the need to rescue a bigger economy such as Italy or Spain. Osborne said the Paris talks had made clear the urgency with which eurozone leaders needed to agree measures to shore up their banks, bolster the EFSF, and develop a sustainable solution for Greece – code for allowing Athens to default on at least half of its loans. “[The crisis] remains the epicentre of the world’s current economic problems,” he said. “The European council is clearly the moment when people are expecting something quite impressive.” It is understood detailed discussions over the focus of the EFSF and how to expand its remit are likely to continue up until the Cannes summit of world leaders in November. Several eurozone countries are wary of expanding the fund, fearful that it will provide a green light to Italy and Spain to relax their debt repayment plans. Holland, Finland and Austria are allied with Germany in calling for private investors, including large European banks and US investment funds, to take bigger losses on their loans to Greece as part of an overall rescue package. Investors have so far rejected plans to increase an agreed loss of 21% to nearer 40%, saying Greece remains on track to cut its debts and ease the burden on its main creditor, the European Central Bank. Concern that 20 or 30 European banks would be forced to seek extra capital, probably from taxpayers, has alarmed Brussels, increasing the urgency to find a way to protect sovereign debts without wrecking bank balance sheets. The G20 delayed a decision on boosting the IMF’s current bailout fund, which could be doubled in size, though the IMF’s dominant shareholders, including the US, Japan, Germany and China, are content with its £270bn of resources. US treasury secretary Timothy Geithner said that, like the UK, Canada and Australia, the US was open to discussions about a larger IMF fund, but that most of its resources remained available. “They [the IMF] have very substantial resources that are uncommitted,” he said. European debt crisis Euro George Osborne IMF European banks Global economy Economics Economic policy Phillip Inman guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Equalities minister says ‘hideous suggestions’ by David Cameron’s advisers must be swept away Lynne Featherstone, the Liberal Democrat equalities minister, has attacked the “hideous” ideas of David Cameron’s closest aides in a sign of coalition tensions over the government’s family policies. In a wide-ranging interview with the Observer , Featherstone said it was vital the coalition delivered on its family-friendly rhetoric, amid concerns that the government is haemorrhaging support among disillusioned female voters. In a forthright attack on some of the advisers shaping government policy, she criticised the role of Adrian Beecroft, a venture capitalist tasked with reporting to the prime minister on how to cut regulation on business. Beecroft is understood to have recommended a U-turn on government policies on shared parental leave and flexible working. The proposals, outlined in a white paper, would allow couples greater freedom to co-ordinate maternity and paternity leave. A separate proposal would make it easier to request flexible working hours. Featherstone told the Observer that Beecroft’s recommendation that the moves should be shelved was not acceptable and would be “swept away”. She also made her feelings clear over a recent “blue sky” proposal from Steve Hilton , the prime minister’s director of strategy, suggesting that the government could scrap maternity pay altogether. Featherstone said: “Well, I might talk about scrapping Steve Hilton.” Such language is a sign of growing concern within the government that it is looking out of touch with female voters and that those close to Cameron are not getting to grips with the problem. Beecroft was brought into Downing Street over the summer to offer ideas to Cameron on laying the groundwork for economic growth He is understood to have proposed a series of measures to lift regulation, which a number of Conservative ministers are minded to support. But Featherstone, MP for the north London constituency of Hornsey and Wood Green, said: “Whatever is in this Beecroft report, I think, will be swiftly swept away. These are hideous suggestions … What I would say about them is that it would be absolutely extraordinary if we were to abandon our commitment to those flagship policies. “It is absolutely vital that we deliver on our rhetoric around family-friendly issues. I wouldn’t support that, Nick [Clegg] wouldn’t support that, and quite frankly David Cameron was campaigning last year on being the most family-friendly government. I would be very surprised if he supported that.” There are worrying signs that the government’s policies are hitting women disproportionately, while measures to encourage equality in business are simply being ignored. Last week the number of unemployed women hit 1.06
Continue reading …