Editor-At-Large: Harman could fix things, but the men won't budge
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Independent Minds
No wonder many women find politics a turn-off and the idea of a career in Parliament less than appealing. Just look at the amount of vindictive press Harriet Harman attracted over the past seven days. If a mouthy, intelligent female – who, won an open election for her job, unlike her male superior – gets described as "thick" and "an idiot" by that repulsive shagger Rod Liddle in The Spectator, and is relentlessly pilloried day after day in the tabloids, it's no wonder her colleagues, Caroline Flint, Ruth Kelly and Jacqui Smith have jumped ship.
Harriet's treatment is not about the need for a thick skin or an ability to cope with the "rough and tumble" of politics (code for macho boorishness), but shows the relentless pigeonholing of any woman in politics who has the temerity to stick her head above the parapet, break ranks and have an opinion of her own.
Successful female politicians get turned into cartoon characters, shrieking feminists, bossy headmistresses, stupid girls or disorganised airheads by these self-appointed guardians of our democracy. Liddle, by the way, is the Michael Winner or Jeremy Clarkson of political journalism – all bluster and no balls. The idea of an articulate woman being in charge of the country for a whole seven days is enough to give chaps like him sleepless nights. What is the world coming to.
Even Prezza, who is a hell of a lot less intelligent than Ms Harman, felt obliged to weigh in with his five bob's-worth when she said that 50 per cent of the top jobs in the Labour Party should be held by women. He was less than impressed. Well, no surprises there.
Harriet Harman certainly had a week in the spotlight with newspaper interviews, the Andrew Marr Show and then Woman's Hour last Thursday. Having read the coverage, I expected to tune in and hear the rantings of a bossy megalomaniac demanding that all men should report to a detention centre and be reprogrammed forthwith. What I got was a reasonable, highly articulate, passionate woman who was completely unapologetic about her view that financial institutions should have far more women on their boards, that the review of how rape cases are dealt with should be more comprehensive, that the pay gap between men and women is unacceptable.
The difference between men and women's pay for the same job is 13 per cent and it's going to widen, according to a recent report. Why should part-time work, which suits many women, be paid at the lowest legal rate? Why shouldn't the BBC, the banks, and all quangos and institutions receiving public funding be mandated to make their boards a 50-50 gender split? That's not stopping minorities, disabled or gay people rising up the ladder – it's giving half of the population a voice.
Rod Liddle says Harman's politics are the "vacuous feminism of the sixth form". If politics engaged with women and delivered a democracy in which women felt they were equal partners, how come there's only one woman left at the top in government?
Harman is derided for a posh background, but let's remember she won a by-election for Labour in 1982 when it couldn't have been more unpopular. As for her oft-stated desire to reform the handling of rape cases: this year two men were finally convicted after 28 rapes and over 100 attacks on women. The police's handling of these cases was called "an abject failure".
Why should 100 women have to be attacked before a man is behind bars? Reported rapes in London rose 14.5 per cent in 2008 and the conviction rate is an all-time low at just 6.5 per cent, so Harriet Harman is right to demand a radical rethink. Many people who denigrate her probably believe many rape victims were "asking for it".
Harriet Harman's Woman's Hour interview was refreshingly jargon-free. There was none of the Brown waffle, and a total lack of rhetoric. You may not agree with her, but there's no doubt that she connected with many listeners. She says she doesn't want to stand as leader – and who can blame her?
In the meantime, we've got Mandelson, Darling and Straw rotating in the hot seat. I don't expect any of them will be labelled "stupid". Which proves my point about the lack of a level playing field. Sadly, the past week proves conclusively we're not ready for another woman – from any party – to run the country.
New SuBo: But only until she's through the front door
Susan Boyle has succumbed to a makeover and looks radiant in a new set of pictures in American Harper's Bazaar. Labelling this troubled women a "hairy angel" was the ultimate insult: she generally looked the way I do after a couple of weeks in rural Yorkshire 20 miles from a hairdresser with only my cabbages and runner beans for company. Let's face it – a basic perm, a £16 Primark jacket and a fake Burberry scarf won't seem out of place in downtown Blackburn, West Lothian. What else would you normally bung on to visit the chip shop or the karaoke bar down at the local hostelry?
Now SuBo's been whisked off to posh Cliveden in a limo, had her hair restyled in that sub-Meg Ryan perky way we know so well and is wearing Donna Karan. She looks great (www.harpersbazaar.com/susanboyle). But I bet the tracksuit and slippers will be back on the minute she's through her front door. Her local council is said to be considering erecting a SuBo statue as the place has become a site of pilgrimage. But will it be of old-style SuBo or the new glam version?
Ruth Madoff feels the pinch
Ruth Madoff, the wife on jailed US financier Bernie, has always claimed she had no idea what her husband was doing as he swindled his clients out of billions of dollars. The family certainly led an opulent lifestyle, but now the prosecutors trying to discover where Bernie hid his ill-gotten gains have decided to get tough with Ruth. She's been photographed travelling on pubic transport, and has to submit accounts for any expenditure over $100. Looking at her expensive blonde bob, I doubt she's get those highlights redone for that, so we could soon be seeing Mrs Madoff in her true colours. Shame our politicians didn't have the $100 rule slapped on all their expenses.
Bing's mile-high bling
The publicity-shy multi-millionaire Steve Bing (at 18 he inherited $600m from grandad's property empire) likes to stay in the background, but it's emerged that he paid for his private plane to fly Bill Clinton to North Korea and bring back the two female journalists imprisoned there. Bing gives huge sums to Democratic causes, raised money for Hillary's presidential campaign and is a passionate environmentalist – a bit hard to square with owning a huge private jet. I once flew to Venice for the day with him and the jet he owned then featured a circular bed, gold taps and reclining brown leather seats. Very Boogie Nights.
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Comments
If she does this,she too,will be unelected.
All this sexist guff reminds me of Mrs.Thatcher's campaign,"Get a Woman at the Helm".
Ask the relatives of the British and Argentinian war dead,how having a female leader of Britain made things better.She was more of a bloke than any p.m. since Churchill.
How many top jobs will Harman give to women?One or two for window dressing,then she will surrond herself with weak male toadies.
All she cares about is her own self-aggrandisement and the expansion of the pool of desperate,cheap labour.
These policies of ''positive discrimination'' will serve to destroy famillies,something nulabour is very good at.
Politicians have to take critiscism.Playing the Jacqui Smith,''leave me alone,I am only a poor woman'' card does nothing to assist women who are out in the real world.
Are you referring to the fact that gender is performative?
Churchill was a wartime leader,so was Thatcher.
In order to promote equality one should seek to ensure equal opportunity based on proven ability, not to introduce legislation requiring positive discrimination and quota filling. Appointing a female candidate in order to fill a quota when there is a better male candidate is discrimination against the latter. This is immoral. If Harriet Harman cannot see this, then she should not be Minister for Equality. Moreover quota-filling makes no economic sense, even in the public sector. The best qualified person for the job should get it; even if the person happens to be male (and even if he is white middle class and middle aged, and even if he is not gay or disabled).
Again, along with the phrase 'positive discrimination' - this is a misconception. I believe the original point about the person best qualified for the job is that certain things have been a disadvange, regardless of who is 'best qualified'. These things include: race, sexuality, gender, physical ability (i.e. against ablist discriminatory practices), age - to name but a few. So the question is that when your 'white middle class and middle aged' male turns up and someone who is not - i.e. distinctly 'other' - the whole point is that the system is biased toward your male 'white middle class and middle aged' and furthermore, everything that led up to the time of the interview (education etc) was biased in favour of your man who is working up to the point of being middle class and middle aged.
Just wondering... how do you know? I'm guessing those of female billionaires would have hammocks rather than Chippendale 'furniture'?
But agreed, being a passionate environmentalist with a private jet is a multiplicity of standards. As well.
b) pleased that a female can think of nothing more substantive than that to justify this creature's occupancy of for example a public office that obstructed implementation of ratified UNCRC.
Hattie's only other supportable claim to fame (as distinct from notoriety) is that she makes Lord Sub-Prime Mortgage look like an attractive alternative
Can you define this?
Blair operated New Labour like an American style presidency reducing his Cabinet Ministers to paper pushers. Brown has just continued with this set up. Consequently, New Labour's Cabinet members, since 1997, haven't been chosen for their talents, but on how loyal or sychophantic they were - at any given time - to Blair or Brown. In other words, loyalists who offer no threat. That's why wer'e in deep shit now. There are no big beasts to help get the job done!
It has to be said though, that sadly some of the most inept [party loyalist] ministers have been women: Jaqui Smith, Ruth Kelly, Yvette Cooper, Patricia Hewitt, Hazel Blears et al. For all I know they may be really lovely people, but they shouldn't be let loose anywhere near any kind of Government Dept. It's cuckoo to even think differently.
As for Harriet, I admire her ability to rise way above her natural political talent. That's something to be admired. But, make no mistake, she's the quintessential New Labour, bland, & truly light-weight loyalist. She' also exceedingly disingenuous regarding her feminist credentials. I recall during the Depty Leadership elections that [whilst she was still the only female in the running] she championed that a woman must get the job. However, once Hazel Blears threw her cap in the ring, her mantra then became: what this country really needs is Gordon as PM and ME ME ME as his deputy. So much for the solidarity of the New Labour Sisterhood.
Reported at 12:00 noon today. Ninety- Eight claims for rape reported in the city of Plymouth for the year 2008.
Of the Ninety- Eight claims/fantasies/drug induced hallucination’s etc etc etc, Fifteen of these satisfied the due process of law and those men were duly convicted.
We will not go into how the Minister for Females obtained her figure of six or so percent conviction rate.
But I feel obliged to advise once an allegation for serious sexual assault is made, the dice is through the due process heavily loaded against the accused.
It starts through police investigation (which effectively means the entire resources of the government are on his case.
All evidence gathered (true or alleged is passed to the CPS) where it is assessed not for credibility but for the probability of conviction in court. The CPS is not obliged to furnish any prospective defence council(s) with any item of evidence that may be counter productive to a conviction. In other words the CPS feel the accused is guilty and therefore conviction is simply a process to satisfy their paymasters in Whitehall and beyond.
Once the CPS has deemed the charges alleged warrant presentation before the courts, the alleged villain of the piece has his name broadcast across the media for any and all to note. This gesture immediately negates any possibility of a fair trial because most in the community will be biased toward him. His accuser on the other hand is afforded anonymity from the word go. Herr Harman when in her role Solicitor General was given the opportunity to afford both accused and accuser equal status in such affairs, but chose not to through her inherent bigotry towards men.
We see almost on a daily basis recently, how men are ridiculed by this process when it is shown in the courts the case against them is thrown out and the creature who made the charge rides off into the sunset none the worse for the experience, except she didn’t get her compo. No retrospective charges for wasting police or court time or for slander against the innocent are brought against her.
Once the accused is in the court and due process begins the system lends itself to his accuser. He the accused sits up there on his pedestal whilst the charges against
him are laid out.
The prosecuting barrister makes a worst case scenario of every alleged point.
The evidence all gathered and processed by government agents and which for reasons best known to the courts are not ratified by a second opinion are accepted by the courts as verbatim, all part of biased procedures in my humble opinion.
But what is infinitely worse is the fact that any victim of alleged rape can if they so chose elect to give evidence via a remote camera and under guidance of the so called court witness support programme (a euphemism once again in my humble opinion a process of how to successfully lie from a remote position to the court)
Although the aggrieved female through some alleged fear or other may feel she is unable to testify in the presence of her alleged tormenter, surely in the interest of cognition and of course justice legislation to this effect Harriet would be more productive???
In conclusion it appears from the 98 to 15 score the ladies and gents who make up the juries in our kneck of the woods are a little wiser and more street wise than those couselled by other elements of the feminest world.
Whichever spotty oink scorned Hattie at early age has a lot to answer for.
Are you saying that, the majority of women who speak up about rape are in fact, lying??? Are you being serious? Many, MANY rapes are happening around the country without being reported purely because there won't be substantial evidence, in the eyes of the court system to convict the assailant. DNA under the fingernails, signs of struggle do come under the term 'helpful evidence', but if you've ever found yourself in that type of situation you will know your body's 'fight or flight' reaction will undoubtable become inactive and you will be frozen to the spot. And what if the accused is a family member, or a boyfriend/husband? It doesn't help that the victim has had sex with her accused before and therefore this time around it can't be rape. Regardless if a women actually said no or not many courts don't believe rape to happen in marriage or relationships - which is so stupid.
With the incredulous statement towards a victim given evidence through Video link being unhelpful, it is sometimes necessary in order for the victim to give evidence at all! Think of the worst thing that has ever happened to you - then think about what it must feel like to be made to reply that very same occurance to about 20 different peole. The victim is put through the entire ordeal AGAIN AND AGAIN in order to see if she's lying. Lord help her if she had been drinking or under the influence, had gone out without a pad lock on her undrwear or indeed a sign saying "PLEASE, DO NOT RAPE ME" which is obviously what is needed in order to say she WEREN'T asking for it.
I understand that it is down to the jury rather than the court system to find an accused guilty or not, but the way the evidence is given and if the accused is described as "good mannered, well dressed member of society" then there is very little chance of conviction. People just do not realise that rapists are more likely to be people you know than a random person on the street. So if they see someone who is plesent enough, there is no chance that they may have done it, of course not!
It is about time something is done to change this. I may be one of those ignorant, nu-wave feminists that, God help us all, AGREE with the notion of equality that will surely bring this country to ruin, but I am proud of it.
As much as what she says makes me cringe, somewhere there Harriet Harmen speaks the truth. And I never in a million years thought I would agree with Janet Street Porter, but I do in this case.
Likewise the part that really scares me is 'getting rape convictions up' - we shouldn't be balancing the law so that more people are thrown in jail - we should follow the law to the hilt - innocent until proven guilty, beyond reasonable doubt - the simplest way to get convictions up is to loosen the law until 'however many convictions is suitable' are made - that's not natural justice
That is Harman's plan - by all means use better evidence, treat victims better, get people to come forward to get more convictions - but making a complicated issue like rape easier to be convicted of will be open to massive abuse
There isn't a way to generate better evidence in cases like this as many happen behind closed doors without people around them to act as witnesses. It is literally one person's word against anothers.
If you made rape look like it was a crime that actually mattered by getting the conviction rate up then more people would come forward. 90% of cases go unreported....90%. The reasoning behind it is they simply feel they won't be believed. Or, they'll go to court and there isn't enough evidennce to convict beyond any reasonable doubt. Or, they know their attacker and don't want to be hated by family and friends when it gets thrown out of court.
Rape, as a crime, is a joke. I just think it needs to be taken a lot more seriously.
Has it occured to you that rape is extremely hard to prove because on so many occassions it comes down to one person's word against another... On top of that, given the law has only been legally recognising that spousal rape exists within my lifetime, it's not very encouraging.
Why should the victim's sexual history be brought up in court? This distinctly suggests that it has a bearing on the case, which is most certainly doesn't. Looking at some recent data, I believe sourced from the police, it suggests that less than 10% of all rape allegations are false. A mere 10%, so add that to the 6.5% conviction rate, and it leaves you an insane majority of men (or women) walking free.
Janet Street-Porter
When I started the article, my foot was caught in the tail of the cat. I just buried her. What is the subject.. You are wasting your time. KISS Keep it simple and short or keep it simple stupid.
Only few words were enough.
We had her, who wants her. Please comment.
And you would have the threads of sisal no spins.
Ruth Madoff, the wife on jailed US financier Bernie, has always claimed she had no idea what her husband was doing as he swindled his clients out of billions of dollars.
Susan Boyle has succumbed from a hairdresser with only my cabbages and runner beans
Harriet Harman certainly had a week in the spotlight with newspaper interviews
The difference between men and women's going to widen, she won a by-election for Labour in 1982 finally convicted after 28 rapes and over 100 attacks on women Reported rapes in London rose 14.5 per cent in 2008 and the conviction rate is an all-time low at just 6.5 per cent, so Harriet Harman is right to demand a radical rethink. Many people who denigrate her probably believe many rape victims were "asking for it".
Please vote here<<<>>>>
I thank you
All these and she wants to come back? And you allow her> Right guys and dolls . Who wants her? please say yee or niegh.
I thank you
Firozali A Mulla
'the week in the spotlight' has been a great success, in that it has multiplied many times, the number of names on Hattie's Gulag list, that list isn't full yet. So watch it!
Do the police catch long ones? Thanks buddy for saving me
I thank you
Firozali A Mulla
Luvved your one about the guy who said to the chasing cop 'I thought you were trying to return her'
While I agree that Blair as shadow home Sec, did build hus career on the Bulger(sic) murder saying this was final proof that the tories- unemployent/p0verty wasn't rspponsible for crime rising
there were inaccuracies-Dobson wasn't Blairs chosen candidate-but preffered
Blair likes fpotball?
the Mail is a mans paper-
While you say the pay gap is 13% - which is the best and fairest statistic to use, Harman and her team actually use the manipulated 22%, and occasionally a 39% that compares male full-timers with female part-timers (or apples and oranges as we call them)
You point out that females suffer because part-timers get the lowest legal rate, but ignore the fact that male part-timers earn 3% less than females - so in effect your point is that women suffer because they opt for part-time work more than men
Meanwhile you talk about making half of all boards female - seems fair...sort of, only what happens when there are more male applicants (or indeed female applicants if it works both ways)? People in the minority group will be be given the upper-hand and given the job on basis of their sex, while the others, defined by their sex, have even less opportunity with fewer spots going to the bigger group
I believe in getting a job on merit, not balancing out the genders, which is discrimination and undermines the intelligence of women (or men in some cases)
As for personal attacks - yes Harman has an opinion, I happen to disagree with it, she's a nutjob in my book - it's the usual defence that whenever you attack a woman it's personal and sexist, it's not - the woman wants to legalise positive discrimination and manipulates statistics to achieve her goal - I have a right to criticise that
Likewise loads of people attack Brown - 'fat', 'dour', 'boring' - 'one-eyed scottish idiot'...need I go on?
I hated Smith because she was incompetent (which she admitted last month!) But I also opposed Reid and Blunkett with a passion, somehow though, this is sexist
I opposed Ruth Kelly for her extreme religious beliefs that seeped into politics, but again...sexist?
Rather than being attacked because they are women, it seems that you could just as easily say they are defended because they are women
Meanwhile one of favourite politicians is Shirley Williams, and I can even admire Thatcher - but that doesn't count, right?