Women's Views on News |
| Posted: 15 May 2014 08:05 AM PDT
By Emma Burnell. I can't say I'm a big fan of Labour's new Party Political Broadcast. I don't believe the message Labour should be taking to the electorate is "we're not as duff as the Lib Dems nor as evil as the Tories". There's no denying that both of those things are true. But "vote for us, we're a bit less crap than the other guys" is not the message that's going to either inspire increased voter turnout or win a mandate for the kind of changes that Ed Miliband's Labour wants to make on a return to power. Nor is it the kind of message that will win over the anti-politics voters we risk losing to UKIP. I think Labour's message that these are tough times for too many of us is the right one. I think it is a sober and serious message. I get that the coalition parties are not dealing with the cost of living crisis, but I think those who are struggling need to know – really know – that we get it. That we take their pain and their hopes seriously. This isn't that. But I don't want to be a hypocrite. So I'm not going to write a negative post about a negative PPB. Instead, I'm going to take my cue from my leader and set out Labour's own positive agenda. This is what I want to see Ed Miliband say. Direct to camera. No jump shots, no film students convinced they're the next Bertolucci. A plain spoken and clearly delivered message. "My friends we live in very difficult times. Thanks to a worldwide economic crash – one that I accept that the last Labour government did not do enough to insulate us from – we are suffering through a prolonged period of austerity. Even now, as the economy staggers slowly back to growth very few of us are seeing our own situations improve. Wages are not recovering for all but a very few at the top. The rest of us find ourselves increasingly working for an economy that doesn't work for us. People feel shut out. Shut out of growth, shut out of the kind of future for ourselves and our families we used to assume was not just possible but natural. Our children with secure roofs over their heads, secure jobs and wages that would rise as they worked out their lives. They also feel shut out of politics. Shut out by the broken promises – on Tuition fees and on the NHS. Shut out by a sense that we aren't listening. That we aren't on your side. The siren cry of UKIP that we're all the same. I know the Labour Party is on your side. But it's not enough for me to know it. I have to prove it to you. I know I can't do everything in government that I would like to. We still have to deal with the deficit. We will have to undo a great deal of the damage that has been done over the last 4 years. We are constrained. But we can start to change the way things work. Change the balance of power between consumers and monopolies, change the markets that aren't working – in housing and energy for example. I offer you today two things. A contract outlining ten concrete ways in which Labour will tackle the cost-of-living crisis. And my cast iron guarantee that these will be enacted into law by my Government in my first two years in office. If you are worried about the cost of rented housing and the lack of homes to buy, we offer you a solution. If you are worried about the cost of childcare, we offer you a solution. If you are worried about your energy bills, your job security or your ability to borrow as a small business, we offer you a solution. And if you're worried that I'm just like all the rest and won't keep my word, I offer you this promise: If these policies are not in my first two Queen Speeches, I will have failed myself as well as you. So I will step down. I will resign as leader of the Labour Party, as Prime Minister and as an MP. Because I came into politics to change things. If I can't manage that, if I am unable to keep these promises to you, then I will step aside for someone who can. I know I will deliver to this country and start to make the changes that our economy desperately needs to build us an economy fit for all its citizens. This contract is just the start of that. But that start is my pledge to you." The contract: Labour will deal with the cost-of-living crisis. We will take immediate action to deal with the pressures facing families, and make the big long term changes we need so that hardworking people are better off. We will: 1) Freeze gas and electricity bills until 2017 and reform the energy market 2) Get 200,000 homes built a year by 2020 3) Stop families that rent being ripped off and help them plan for the future with new long term predictable tenancies 4) Cut income tax for hardworking people through a lower 10p starting tax rate, and introduce a 50p top rate of tax as we pay off the deficit in a fair way 5) Ban exploitative zero-hour contracts 6) Make work pay by strengthening the Minimum Wage and providing tax breaks to firms that boost pay through the Living Wage 7) Back small businesses by cutting business rates and reforming the banks 8) Help working parents with 25 hours free childcare for three and four year-olds 9) Tackle the abuse of migrant labour to undercut wages by banning recruitment agencies that only hire foreign workers and pressing for stronger controls in Europe 10) Back the next generation with a job guarantee for the young unemployed and more apprenticeships This is our contract with you. A version of this article appeared on Labour List on 8 May.  |
| Posted: 15 May 2014 04:15 AM PDT
This is a tribute by WVoN’s sports editor, Penny Hopkins. There are plenty of purely straight obituaries to read, but this is not going to be one of them. It is an unashamedly personal piece. I first became aware of Elena in 1989 when she was just five years old. Her father, Sergei, a professional footballer with 46 caps for the USSR, had just signed for my team Ipswich Town. The signing had caused somewhat of furore as Sergei was the first Soviet player to play in the English league. As I write this I am looking at an article some 25 years old, cut out and saved by my teenage self, probably from the football magazine ‘Shoot’. It is a Q and A with Sergei, communicated through an interpreter as Sergei spoke no English at all when he first came to England, and includes a rather awkward photograph of him in his Ipswich kit with his arms around his wife, Olga and children, Sergei Junior and Elena. Elena stands there bemused in a bomber jacket and jeans and a rather bizarre-looking white hat incorporating white fluffy earmuffs. It all went a bit Russia-crazy in Suffolk for a while. Soviet flags started to be displayed in the stands at Portman Road and the English footballing establishment wondered whether Baltacha's signing would signal an influx of players from Eastern Europe. In fact, in the end, Sergei only made 24 appearances for Ipswich before transferring to St. Johnstone in Scotland. But it was an amazing time and he is remembered with great fondness by Ipswich fans, including me. Although she was born in Kiev, in the Ukraine, Elena grew up largely in Perth in Scotland and is usually described as Scottish. But she always retained a love for Suffolk, moving back to Ipswich as an adult, and she was always welcomed at Portman Road. In 2010 she and her coach, Nino Severino, who became her husband in January, set up the Elena Baltacha Tennis Academy in Ipswich. Enough of the reminiscing; she had a career that needs acknowledging. Elena showed a determination to play good tennis when the British game was at its lowest. Between December 2009 and June 2012 she was ranked Britain's number one for a total of 132 weeks. But at the age of 19 she was diagnosed with primary sclerosing cholangitis, a chronic liver condition which meant constant medication and repeated blood tests. She was unlucky with tennis-related injuries too, but acquired a reputation for battling through. Elena got to the third round of the Australian Open in both 2005 and 2010, and the third round at Wimbledon in 2002. She reached a world ranking of 49. During her career she won 11 singles titles and was also part of Britain's Fed Cup team for 12 years. In November 2013 she finally succumbed to injury and retired from tennis. In January this year she married, just a few weeks before receiving the liver cancer diagnosis. In a way, she is the reason I'm now interested in women's tennis. Not many people will have come to it via this circuitous route, but I always considered Elena an honorary Ipswich player and followed her career wholeheartedly. Judging from the tributes paid by her fellow professionals, family and friends, it is obvious that she made a great impact on those around her and "Bally" will be sadly missed.  |
| Women in close combat: for and against Posted: 15 May 2014 01:09 AM PDT Last week the Ministry of Defence announced that it was bringing forward a review into whether women in the Armed Forces should be allowed to serve in close combat roles. The review will look at whether women can serve in the infantry or in the Royal Armoured Corps in the army, roles where they would be required ‘to close with’ – and kill – the enemy. The Ministry now expects to reach a decision on the matter by the end of the year. The Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Peter Wall, said: "Our experience in Afghanistan has highlighted the increasingly important contribution women are making to operations. "It is now sensible to review the army's approach to the employment of female soldiers in the combat arms of the army: the Royal Armoured Corps and the infantry. "The key factor informing this judgement," he said, "will be the delivery of operational effectiveness." The Ministry of Defence last reviewed this policy in 2010 and concluded that there was 'no evidence to show that a change in current policy would be beneficial or risk-free.' A decision was made to maintain the then current position. "There is no question that some women would be able to meet the standard required of personnel performing in close combat roles, both physically and psychologically. "The key issue is the potential impact of having both men and women serving together in small teams. "Under the conditions of high-intensity, close-quarter battle, team cohesion becomes of much greater importance; its failure having potentially grave and far-reaching consequences. "None of the research that has been done has been able to conclusively answer the key question of the impact that gender mixing would have on the combat team in close combat conditions," an MOD statement said. The UK’s Defence Secretary, Philip Hammond, said last week that he had brought the review forward from 2018 "not because there are thousands of women desperate to join the combat arms, but because of the message that the Army is not fully open to women who can meet the fitness and other requirements – the message that sends to women who might be looking to join other parts of our military. "We won’t compromise on the fitness that we require for people to be able to keep themselves safe and to do their job effectively. "That will obviously mean that some roles will have limited numbers of women," he added. Which means women will be required to carry 63 kilos of kit into a combat zone. The announcement has received mixed reactions from women. Barbara Ellen, writing in the Observer, said: "It seems to me that Hammond should be less concerned with the message being sent out, and more about addressing the key issues surrounding women in direct combat, some of which cannot be dismissed as mere chauvinism. "For a start, Hammond needs to be more specific about these “fitness levels”, currently reputed to be so punishingly high as to be out of the reach of most men. "Does the fact that so few women could realistically acquire this ultra-alpha “male” brand of fitness mean that their combat numbers would end up being tokenistic? The training, she remarked, would be "offered to deter outside criticism regarding sexism, but would women who didn’t succeed at the male-oriented tests be dismissed as failures who couldn’t hack it? "Conversely, if standards were altered to accommodate female difference (please note, not ‘inferiority’ but ‘difference’), would this result in placing effectively under-trained women and their colleagues at even greater risk?" She is also concerned that women in close combat roles would still be unusual and represent a 'warped kind of trophy' – and be exposed to rape. Perhaps the MOD would be better spending its time looking at the criteria it uses to select people for close combat roles and the Special Forces and their relevance to the job, instead of worrying that women will upset the 'cohesion' of team engaged in combat. And women would undoubtedly be at risk of rape in the field of battle. But women who take on these roles would be fully aware of the risks and would eventually play a part in challenging them. Excluding women is not the answer.  |
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