When I got the news last night that I was appointed Under Secretary of State for Equalities (Home Office Minister) it didn’t really sink in as to what that really meant.
This morning – lying in the bath thinking about the portfolio – I realised that this is a huge opp0rtunity to change things for the better. I will be able to do – not just to say. For two years as Shadow Equalities spokesperson – through the Equality Bill, through countless speeches to groups , through our conference policy papers on Women and Youth – it has always been about what LibDems would do about equality if we were in government. Blimey – we are!
Now I can deliver it – well some of it. Equalities was not in that first tier agreement released by Liberal Democrats and Conservatives prior to coalition – but it will be part of the second tier agreement I believe.
So – today will find out the lie of the land – but the chance to deliver Liberal Democrat equality policy is phenomenal. Will I get our whole agenda agreed – well I might – but there are a few things I can see causing ructions – but I am optimistic about most of it.
Hurrah!
Lynne Featherstone 
Lynne.
Did you really vote AGAINST the repeal of Section 28?????
David,
No, she didn’t, for 3 reasons:
1.She wasn’t in Parliament at the time.
2. If she had been, she would have been voting with the Liberal Democrats who voted to a man (and woman) in favour of the repeal of Section 28.
3. She’s Lynne Featherstone.
LMAO at david. Did you ever think to go to theyworkforyou and check up on this? Also glad that Lynne’s got the job and hoping she can balance out that horrible tory minister
Hi Lynne,
I’m very happy the Lib Dems are in power and that you have a ministerial position. But please don’t try to ban Page 3; it’s not the Liberal way. I will be watching and making sure the Lib Dems stick to their principles while they are in Government…
Well done Lynne!
I just hope you and your colleagues don’t end up like Labour did, turning authoritarian as soon as you get into office. Please don’t just start banning things, criminalising things, spying on thing, building databases about things etc etc etc. Treat the public as adults, not children; give us more freedom not less; and most of all, never forget you’re a liberal!
Oh, and don’t let your boss go all Daily Mail on us… 😉
Congratulations. And go for it, get it in the second tier agreement, fight for it.
Dear Lynne,
can you please refrain from the over repeated use of hyphens or dashes. It makes your blog extremely difficult to read.
I agree with the last comment regarding your grammar. Since you are representing our constituency, I think your constituents have a right to be able to understand what you are writing on your blog!
When it comes to Equality Strands, I hope that Lynne Featherstone will also examine how carers are treated. Is it fair? Is it ‘equal’? As I understand it we have several ‘equality ‘strands: Age- Disability- Gender – Race or nationality- Religion or Belief – Sexual orientation and so on. So why don’t we have an equality strand for discrimination on the basis of ‘paid work status/care responsibilities’?
What concerns me is unfair treatment for people who don’t/can’t work due to Caring responsibilites – whether caring for children to 16/18 years old – or caring for the vulnerable or the elderly. Lots of people don’t want to pass the responsibility on to a third party, whether it’s paid childcare or homes for the elderly. As far as possible they want to provide personal family-based care.
A lot of the time (but not always) women will be carers – a lot of women choose this role and some get it thrust upon them. But rather than seeking to improve the lives of Carers by relieving them of the responsibility, how about really valuing care work itself? What about factoring the value of unpaid care into GDP for example? THe fact is Care is part of the human condition – but quite often it is not recognised, respected or properly understood, and it’s precisely because of this lowly status that carers (or non taxpayers to put it another way) are not really valued in the system. When a couple has a ‘carer’ in the family then that household should be taxed accordingly in recognition of the fact that one member of the family is otherwise engaged in caring. To some people they may be ‘inactive’ or ‘non-contributors’ but in fact they can be saving the state millions – and we should value the time and commitment put in.
If we want a more caring society than we’ve had these past couple of decades, one that recognises what people do rather than how much money they earn, then perhaps we need to reflect on how ‘carers’ are treated, both for household taxation/benefit purposes and in terms of how people relate to one another.
Lynne,
I am so pleased you are against ‘page 3’; half naked women have no place in current affairs. Page three should not have a place among our newspapers. If it isn’t bad enough that The Sun is full of dribble; they also have perversions dribbling all over the dribble.
I, as a woman, am very proud of my body and do not see that as a poke at expression or as any limitation on the freedoms of women to do as they will with their bodies, but instead as an invitation to the people of Britain to freely ponder over women’s breasts as normal behaviour; it’s not! The Sun makes it acceptable to show images of a sexual nature to whomever buys it, including young people, as if (ironically so) as easy as buying a newspaper.
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