Why we need women to be in power...

…and working in journalism*, and the police, the army and the courts and more or less anywhere. And I mean In positions of power not just support.

This is an excellent article by Linda Grant on Comment is Free.

She is talking about her work in investigating claims of mass rape in Bosnia during the Balkans Conflict. She identifies it was the first time that rape was generally recognised as a weapon of war at the same time that the war was going on and that it was women being involved that made that happen: She says:

“What was different in Croatia and Bosnia was that this was the first war that had been monitored by women's organisations, which received reports and collected data.

It was also, perhaps, the first war in which women were, in increasingly large numbers, gaining high profile positions in journalism. After the piece came out, I was contacted by Veronica Waddley, then features editor of the Telegraph (now editor of the Evening Standard)”

I know that many people say that it doesn’t matter what gender or race a person is, they can still represent all humanity. And in theory, I agree. I wouldn’t like to think that I would discriminate in my compassion for others, on the basis or their gender or race.

However, I note that in practice, that it just doesn’t work like that; it has needed women getting into positions of power to start recognising that rape is used as a weapon of war. It did take the increases (however paltry) to the number women in parliament in 1997 to bring in some of the flexible working, maternity and childcare legislation and provision over the last 11 years.

So, although in theory it doesn’t matter what groups are in power and what their gender is, in practice is seems to. This is why diversity is so important. Diversity is important, to have not just a woman’s experience but both men and women’s experience when making decisions on things.

To me this is so important that I am not prepared to wait until there is equality ‘naturally’. I don’t think that will ever happen; we need to rebalance it in women’s favour.

I appreciate, some men out there may not feel particularly advantaged: there are always those who have the merit of being the right colour, the right class, having the right amount of money and having gone to school with the right people. However, as can be shown through the numbers, the biggest advantage there is in politics, in business, in anywhere where power exists, is to be male.

And I can’t see how this is going to change, given the stagnation that has happened in the numbers of women being elected into parliament without some form of quotas. In the Liberal Democrats we do in fact have gender quotas for most bodies, from the FE & FPC, to selection committees, shortlists to PR election lists; why do we refuse to bring them in for the most vital, the most likely to effect positive change for millions of women? Why do we not have them for winnable parliamentary seats? Why do we not have a good long look at how we define the various roles in the party, especially those of PPC and agent to make them fit women’s lives more easily instead of insisting that women’s lives fit them?

In the Labour party they do use All Women Shortlists (AWS) and their women’s organisations have real strength within the party, are taken seriously and listened to by both men and women.

It always makes me very sad to see how few men turn up to the usually very interesting fringes that Women Liberal Democrats put on; we’re supposed to believe that they are able to represent all our experiences but they don’t both to do the most simple things to find out what they are.

Even in the Tory Party, Cameron at least goes on Woman’s Hour and sounds like he wants women to join and take part. I listened to the Women’s House podcast when he was on a few months ago – I tell you, he was very compelling! When are our leaders going to be going on Women’s Hour asking for the listeners to get involved?

Nick Clegg has said that if we don’t sort it out within two parliaments then we are going to have to look at AWS again. Well, from the data that the Electoral Reform Society has come up with that’s not going to happen in the next parliament so that only leaves one more. Why wait for the inevitable? Why wait another parliament of nothing changing when bringing forward change would make a real difference for millions of women’s lives? Why should all that be sacrificed for the sake of the ambitions of 30 odd male approved candidates? I know that the sacrifice of the individual for the group does not fit with our liberal values but I think we are cutting off our nose to spite our face if we don’t do this. I truly believe that more diversity will lead to better lives for all.

I’m very interested to see what the newly incepted Speakers Conference comes up with; I do hope it is going to deliver real action and not just wishful thinking! I’m also looking forward to hearing a bit more about what the Bones Commission in the Lib Dems has to say about sorting this problem out. I’m kind of hoping that it will and that will explain why Nick has been so quiet on this topic over the last 7 months.

*How many lobby correspondents are women, by the way…have you counted recently? Quite a few national newspapers don’t have any women reporting from the press gallery. I went to a press gallery lunch the other week that Nick spoke at and I’m trying very hard to remember but I don’t think there were any questions by women and was told that most of the women in the room were not in fact journalists but invited as the guests of journalists (as I was). So a lot of men asking other men questions about things that interest men.




Living with Boris

Well, thankfully not literally but having had a very harrowing last few weeks, it has come to my notice that Boris really did get in.

And it’s like this: I was really against Boris getting in, not so much because he was a Tory as I don’t much like non nuLabour Ken but that I didn’t think he was really up to the job. However clever he is (and I do believe he’s clever) he lacks the experience to run an £11bn budget and my lovely city. And I’m not convinced by the idea that he will gather a group of knowledgeable people around him; he lacks the experience to know and recognise when someone is mucking it up.

Still, he’s in and I find my desire to make London the best city that it possibly can be, is greater than my distaste for this man. So, I’m not sitting back to watch him fail, with glee in my eyes. I am hoping that he doesn’t fail; I am hoping that he brings in good policies and improves this city. Because if I’m honest, I love this city more than I love party politics.

So, how is he doing?

The Drinking Ban: pointless and illiberal. It’s not people with open alcohol containers that create the problem, it’s people disturbing the peace and being violent. I don’t think that alcohol containers being open of not makes the slightest bit of difference. This is nuLabour gesture politics. I dislike it’s illiberalness but apart from that, I don’t think it’ll harm London, it just won’t help London. A wasted opportunity. The ‘riot’ will be neither here nor there in a few months.

The break up with Chavez: This I actually applaud. I haven’t given much thought to why Boris has done it; I suspect it has more to do with not subsidising bus fares than an ethical foreign policy for London (it’ll be easier to cut the subsidy later, without a fanfare). After all, the Tory just lurve the Saudi’s, don’t they? So, I’d be surprised if Boris was put off by the whiff of corruption that follows Chavez around. Still, I’m happy about it, because I don’t like having a deal with London giving Chavez, the man who shuts down TV stations that don’t agree with him, any airs of respectability.

The big bill for the transitions team: My eyebrow is only half raised. It is expensive, especially when you compare it to the permanent staff pay packet. But, but, if you look at the private sector incomes for these kind of people, especially if they’re working on a fee basis rather than salary, whilst it’s still pricey, it’s not so far removed from the market rate. It is, however, I fear down to the lack of experience that Boris Johnson has in actually running anything that he’s paying private sector market rate type prices. It’s all very well having an attitude of paying to get the best, when you yourself earn £250k for the part time job of penning a newspaper column, but there just isn’t the sort of money in the public sector when you can’t justify high costs with high profits. If he had more experience, he would know this. Instead he will just run out of money sooner and then have to run the place on a skeleton staff which will be no fun for them and no fun for us. Budget control, the lack of which Ken was rightly castigated for, was never going to be Boris’ strong point. I’m just trying to work out what is.

Routemaster Buses only an aspiration: Hahaha! Of course they are and they should not be his number one priority!

So, the verdict?

To be honest, he’s not had much time to ruin it yet and, veering back into party politics for a moment, my fears about the impact on a Tory revival have been realised. I wonder what those Lib Dems going around telling us how Boris was going to be the more liberal are feeling now, when the first thing he does is ban something?

Still, when my partner and I were walking across Trafalgar Square the other Sunday morning we looked at the Africa Day stage being set up and thought about how funding for cultural events such as this would be quietly dropped, just like funding for environmental schemes in the capital will no doubt be reduced. No big press conference, fanfare there. No doubt to pay the bills of his super duper transition team. It will be a decidedly different London. In fairness, I have castigated Ken Livingstone on live TV for being just a Trafalgar Square Mayor, but that was more for his focus on inner London boroughs at the expense of the suburbs, but I did enjoy the events that took place at Trafalgar Square.

One of my big interests in London though, is policing. And I am a big, big fan of community policing. I went to the commendation ceremony of my Safer Neighbourhood team the other day and wondered, along with a senior policeman whether funding for community policing would continue. We both hoped so. But whilst the number of police and PCSOs is important, as is parents and the wider communities responsibility for the behaviour of our children, one key factor in dealing with young people’s crime and unsafe streets is something for young people to do. My experience of living in a Tory borough is that whilst, they have done very well in clearing up graffiti, they seem to have made it their life’s work to reduce funding for young people’s facilities and activities. The link between bored and disillusioned young people and crime is clear; can Boris be the first Conservative, with the help of his Deputy Mayor Ray Lewis, to realise that it is better prevent young people from committing crime than just punish them when it’s all too late?

Worrying about homophobia in schools? Don't be so gay...

Zoe Williams has got a particularly irritating column in the Guardian today where she argues that the routine use of the word gay as an insult in schools today should just be accepted as a done deal.

Apparently because school children do not mean ‘homosexual’ when they call their peers gay but rather ‘crap’ or ‘stupid’, then use of the word is fine! If we try and challenge it we’ll just make it worse, so best just walk away and let them get on with it.

I’m not gay but I am female and I know that when people use the word ‘girl’ or ‘woman’ in a pejorative term, as one of the young men sitting near me did the other day, when he suggested that his football team played like a bunch of girls, I find it pretty offensive. I like being a woman and I enjoyed being a girl, I think it’s a pretty cool thing to be (pay and power gap notwithstanding, obviously). I certainly don’t like my sex or gender being conflated with a rubbish team of footballers!!

As one of the commenters points out in her column Zoe Williams manages to reduce bullying and prejudice to semantics. Yes, language changes and I’m all for a living vibrant language. But changes in language do not happen by coincidence. I think the fact that gay, in the playground, now means rubbish, crap or broken is as a result of homophobia. What about those teenagers who are gay and hurt by these insults being thrown around? What about the gay teachers and adults around them? Did Zoe Williams consider them when she suggested that we all give up because teenage ‘yoof’ culture will win out in the end.

I know that teenagers use language to shock and rebel; but what if we’re not shocked by it? Then it just becomes common place and I don’t want to live in a world where using words such as gay, girl and woman, words that are used to describe groups of people, are everyday insults.

What is it with adults today? Are we so much in thrall to the concept of youth that we must follow teenagers lead, even when we’re being led into the world of the playground bullies? Teenagers are not fully mature and both those hurling the insults and those receiving them may not have the ability to understand the nuances between gay being used to mean homosexual and gay being used to mean crap or rubbish.

I don’t have children myself but I do mentor a teenager. Part of that mentoring is about providing him with an insight into my values and setting him boundaries of behavior, as well as listening to him and being his friend. But when the chips are down, I’m the adult and it is my job to guide him through the grey areas of what is right and what is wrong, not his to guide me. So, from taking things to lost property when you find them in the playground instead of pocketing them, to not sneaking underneath the tube gates without paying and, yes, to showing him how words can hurt, I help provide him with a set of values which I hope will make him into a sensitive, thoughtful and honest adult.

Sure, I can’t stop a teenager from using gay as an insult, but I can give him my opinion of it when he or she does; it’s just as much my language as it is his or hers.

Because it is an uphill struggle doesn’t mean I’m going ever think it is OK to use the word gay as an insult. Zoe Williams can argue that trying to challenge the use of the word is pointless but I’d rather stick with Stephen Williams and the Lib Dem campaign against homophobic bullying in schools. Of course it is up to teachers to set the boundaries for children’s and teenagers behaviour in schools just as it is up to parents, youth workers and other volunteers to do so out of school. Where are young people meant to learn about kindness and sensitivity if we, as adults, get too caught up in the semantics of language to bother?

Increasing voter turnout the democratic way....

This really interesting posting from a Clinton activist (thanks to Duncan for having the feed on his website) goes to prove that the most exciting thing about this Us nomination race is the impact that the diversity of the candidates is having on ‘hard to reach’ or ‘never reached before’ voters!

According to NewHampster out of the 10,000 votes polled where she was campaigning that day 1,000 were registrations on the day…and from her experience of being on the ground these were mainly women. Not women who had switched from Clinton to Obama and back again at the first sight of emotion but women who had not intended up until that point to vote.

She also describes the Obama crowd that came in to vote around midday as looking like “the line for a rock concert”. Would that any polling station in the UK ever had a line, let alone one that looked like that for a rock concert!!

If this isn’t a lesson for all those concerned about voter apathy not to realise how important diversity is then I don’t know what is! I am finding it all just so exciting!

Diversity isn’t just a ‘good thing’ or the ‘right’ thing to do - it will get us more votes, more councillors, more MPs, more AMs, MSPs and MEPs!

How are we going to attract more women and ethnic minorities to join us and ensure that as a party we reflect the people that we seek to represent? So that in future elections in the UK we reach the thousands of young men and women who are currently don’t see the point of voting? And crucially how are we going change ourselves to attract a more diverse group of people?

Stranger Danger

It is not every day that I agree with Anne Atkins but I agreed with her absolutely on the Today programme this morning in discussion with Esther Ransom. It was following The Children’s Society findings that although many of today’s adults were allowed out for unsupervised play as children they are not giving their own children the same freedoms.

Anne’s argument was that this approach is illogical because children are at no higher risk of stranger danger than we were ourselves, the risk that our children won’t learn independence and grow up is far higher than anything untoward; that parks are in fact safe places. Esther Ransom’s argument in return was that letting children out wasn’t worth it because you would feel very bad if it turned out to be your child (one of the approximately 12 a year) that was killed by stranger.

This, I find an entirely parent rather than ‘child centric’ view from Esther Ransom, it is incredibly selfish, not to mention illogical.

Firstly, it should not be how the parent feels about something that is important; it is about what is best for the child. So a parent worries; well, big deal, that’s part of being a parent and it is not right to try and deal your own fear by attempting to remove any risk to your children. There is risk in life and there is a balance.

And that is why it is illogical to be so fearful of stranger danger when in fact more children are killed by their carers, by being in a car or by accidents at home than by strangers. And yet, we ignore all that and harm their development by keeping them tied to our apron strings until they are 14. There is no balance in that.

It seems to me that we have got too used to being able to control so much that we are unable to cope with the ambiguity and lack of control in providing our children with the freedom they need to develop,

When I was 9 or 10 I had a friend that I used to go out to play with and we would maybe come back for lunch or maybe at the end of the day. I was probably always pretty independent but it gave me a belief in my ability to negotiate my way through life that has been the most valuable thing in my life. From an early age I have travelled all over the UK and all over the world, taking sensible precautions but never in fear. I really do feel for the teenagers, that I know, whom are not even allowed to go on an hours journey by themselves because of their parents’ rather than their own fears.

How to be happy

The government wants us to be happy and well. So now GPs should be prescribing country walks as medicine for those suffering from depression (actually, it’s called an ‘ecotherapy’) and happiness lessons for school children.

I am not going to do a rant about it all being common sense etc, etc because I do understand that the study on country walks, was looking at non-chemical responses to an illness that by its very nature leads the suffers to not believe that anything can improve their life, let alone something like a bit of fresh air. They are therefore are unable to apply such a self help approach without prompting. I am a great fan of cognitive therapies and this one sounds much better than filling someone full of drugs.

But it doesn’t take much to imagine how we’ll soon be getting leaflets through the door and adverts on TV about the anti-depressive benefits of a walk in the park.

What this has a whiff of, and the teaching happiness directive from a government advisor reeks of, is the habit of this Labour Government, promulgated by Blair, Brown and practically every member of the Labour Party I’ve ever met, of trying to legislate for human behaviour.

For some people this does lead them to wander off ranting about the glories of common sense (or maybe that’s just my Step-Dad!!) but what those rants fail to do is find a solution to the problem...which is, for the Labour Government at least, how to ensure that everybody applies the benefits of collective common sense to their lives.

So, Labour takes a typical process driven response which is to ensure that everybody follows the best practice route to achieve happiness. Rather like I, as a project manager, tend to follow a recognised project management approach to ensure the correct outcome for any change I am attempting to bring about is positive.

Many companies and organisations and, indeed, the Government make it ‘policy’ for their employees to follow these project management processes as otherwise they would have to rely on wisdom, experience and talent… which may or may not be there!

And the Government is trying to make it their policy that we too follow the correct process to deliver ‘happiness’ and ‘well being’.

They have to channel the implementation of these polices through the health service, schools and the police as even they cannot currently reach into our homes and make us do it for ourselves; hence why the responsibility for producing happy children now seems to be the responsibility of the teacher and not the parent.

So far, so logical; if not entirely common sense-ical.

But of course, what this betrays is the fact that the Labour party is pretty much convinced that we have neither the wisdom, talent nor experience to be happy or well human beings.

They do not trust us, and so, they step in and sort it all out for us.

Ten years of not being trusted to get on with things has created in many people a culture of being receivers of aid – it is not our responsibility to sort our problems out but the government’s. This is the nanny state in action and all coming on top of the previous 18 years of Tory ‘personal responsibility’, in other words responsibility for yourself, and maybe your family, but no one else.

As a civil libertarian I am all for a small government and am keen to be as free as possible to follow my own path to happiness and take advice from whom I choose on how to get there…if, indeed, that’s my aim.

But I, like many others, am concerned about reports that our children are the unhappiest in the OECD countries, that anti-depressant drugs are being prescribed more than ever before and that there are teenagers living in my community for whom the value of a human life is less than their pride at not being ‘cut up’ by another’s’ car on the Walworth Rd.

So, it is not enough to rail against the nanny state and leave it at that.

Firstly, we should not get it out of proportion; it is clear that good, well behaved and happy children and human beings do not make the news.

Secondly, we have to look to ourselves and take responsibility not just for ourselves but for our community. And. that, is why I find Liberal Democracy so compelling. At its philosophical heart it satisfies not just my need for freedom but also my desire to be free within a community.

The personal responsibility that I take on is not just a compact with the state but also with my neighbours and fellow human beings. By sucking up all the power into the centre and issuing policies on how to behave and what to do the Government undermine the local community and the personal responsibility within that compact.

Westminster politicians and the government do have a role to play and that is to give the power back to local communities and leave it to them. Of course, this requires them to trust people and communities which is why Labour will never do it, no matter how Gordon bleats on about personal responsibility because they will never be able to believe that they don’t know best, including on how to be happy.

Sydenham got there first...

This morning Radio 4 did a piece on a pilot scheme in Middlesbrough where anti social behaviour is be dealt with by the use of ‘talking CCTV’.

So much for Middlesbrough being first; this has already been happening at Sydenham Station, although I don’t know how frequently! One evening last summer, I came into the station to go into town where a couple of young lads were sitting on the back of a bench on the platform, with their feet on the seat. All of a sudden a voice came over the platform speaker, saying something like ; ‘Will the young men on platform one take their feet off the bench. Yes, YOU!’

The effect was immediate, they got down and the rest of us in the station just sort of smirked at them; minor piece of anti social behaviour dealt with.

But as I crossed the bridge over to the London platform I was aware that, although instantly very effective, this did not bode well. It’s also not so hard to extrapolate from John Reid’s latest plans a world where our behaviour is monitored and controlled by the state. If that’s the case, we’re not really that far from 1984, are we? The thing to remember is as well, how easy to implement state surveillance is in this country, as we have more CCTV cameras per head than any other country.

However, it is not enough just to demonize CCTV; I know from my work with the local Safer Neighbourhoods Team in Crystal Palace that a CCTV camera, well advertised and pointing at the right place can transform the quality of lives of residents on estates. And let’s not forget that it can also serve the defence of human rights and civil liberties as Liberty’s calls for an IPCC investigation of the treatment of a woman by the police in an underground car park in Sheffield illustrate.

It is, though, a very typical response from the government, in the face of antisocial behaviour, to resort to a centralised state delivered solution; and how much more centralised do you have to get than a faceless voice over a loud speaker?

If however, we want a solution to low level anti-social behaviour we need to look to ourselves.

If we don’t like the behaviour of our fellow citizens such as putting feet on seats or littering we actually have a choice. We can either leave it to the government to sort out and hence not be surprised when we find ourselves being treated like children, or we can start to set examples and take responsibility as individuals and a community for the behaviour of our young people.

I’m not suggesting any sort of vigilantism and it is for the police and the safer neighbourhood teams to deal with violent, threatening or criminal behaviour.

But many times the situation is quite benign, so, instead of tutting (or as often happens with me ‘fuming’) to ourselves because someone has dropped litter or a young person has their feet up on the seat in the train, we should say something, do something, just provide a different model of behaviour for them to follow. It may not always be successful, our request may be initially ignored but even a failed request will have a bigger impact on future behaviour than none at all.

Anyhow, in many cases with teenagers it is a lack of awareness that such behaviour is antisocial than any deliberate intent. And OK, so maybe their parents should be teaching them how to behave, but that doesn’t absolve us from our community responsibility. That is certainly not an excuse that would have entered our heads 30 or 40 years ago - or even 20, if you happened to be an adult in the village where I grew up!

If each one of us just undertook one action, provided some sort of role model just once a week, then we would surely start to make a difference. This is not a policy but grass roots action, that I am advocating and it is a slow burn not an overnight solution - obviously!

I firmly believe that people don’t drink and drive as much now, not because they think they’ll get caught by the police, but that it is no longer socially acceptable – I’m looking forward to when speeding becomes an equal taboo.

We have an opportunity as individuals to have an impact on our community and I am convinced that the world most of us would prefer to live in is one where the community regulates itself rather than leaving it to someone a bunch of private security employees to bawl at us through a loud speaker.

I just don’t want naming and shaming; I want a strong, supportive and free community.

A letter from Tony

Aaaargh! So now we know, what's in store for us if we sign up to a 10 Downing street petition.

Yesterday, horror of horrors, I got an email from Tony Blair, making the case for ID cards. I have so far resisted the temptation to clamp my hands over my ears and sing 'I'm not listening, I can't hear you, la, la, la...' and despite the rather scary proposition of the police 'fishing' for fingerprints at whim, as highlighted on The Today Programme this morning, I'm not going to go into here what's wrong with ID cards.

But, what does interest me is this whole online political engagement 'thing' that has arisen with these petitions. Even though it means I have to receive emails from Tony Blair, I do find it all rather exciting because some of these petitions are involving more than us 'usual suspects'; and if you're reading my blog, then unless you're my Mum or my friend Ali in Holland, you know I mean you!!!

The 'Scrap the ID cards petition' got 28,000 signatures, the road pricing one 1,500,000 and each one of those 1,500,000 is going to get an email dropping into their inbox arguing for the Government Policy. Now, I wouldn't normally wish this on my worst enemy, but actually, I think it is more important that people start to be politically engaged first and then politically engaged with me and the Lib Dems, on the basis that that first bit is harder to achieve than the second.

I got the viral email asking me to sign the road pricing petition via a non political friend, who had sent it on to a number of others. They all probably vote but that's as far as they go; the only regular political discussion they seem to take part in is 'Jo-baiting', an unsurprisingly easy thing to do, perhaps they save the interesting stuff for when I'm not there!

It's also likely that those who are going to get their letter from Tony, were on average younger than the voting population; just that group who seem so disillusioned and disengaged with the political process - this has got to be a good thing for politics and the taxpayers and voters, surely?

I'm not the only one that is really excited about the potential that viral campaigning has, even if it is the Downing St that's got all the email addresses, am I?

More working from home, please!

Gary, the Sports Presenter from the Today Programme, couldn't make it through the snow this morning and did his sports bit from his own house! This is good, because it shows that even the Today Programme presenters can 'work from home'!! Hooray!

Why aren't we doing more of this? Why do we all insist on piling into trains, getting into cars and criss crossing the country making ourselves tired and ruining the planet?

It drives me crazy that we don't take advantage of how technology is able to free us and instead just let it enslave us - after all in the UK we work the longest hours and are the least productive country in Europe - or at least we used to be, I don't know how EU enlargement has impacted that.

Of course, the problem here is 'Bosses' because a culture that allows working from home can only come from the top - if your boss doesn't approve, well, you just don't work from home, do you?

And yet, I find it completely illogical that more Bosses don't see the benefits to their teams and therefore themselves of regular 'working from home' - it's almost as if, because they had to sacrifice a home life in order to spend 3 hours a day commuting to and from an office they think that's the only way to succeed. Or, maybe they just want the rest of us to suffer like they do....

In fact, in a number of organisations that I've wroked with, it's only the top Bosses that are allowed to work from home - it's almost as if it's seen as a reward for having practically worked yourself into an early grave..you have to nearly ruin yourself and your family first; what a waste!

There are obviously times when a team needs to get together and work together but I know lots of organisations that , due to historical mergers, operate over multiple sites, hundreds of miles from each other. There are also obviously jobs that can't be done remotely! But these are often the exception. Blimey, if Gary from the Today Programme can work from home, many of the rest of us probably can!

So, they know the technology supports remote working; the economics supports remote working; society supports remote working - for goodness sake in the UK we spend less time with our kids than any other country in Europe, yet lock more of them up when they commit crimes - just think what a difference having an adult around after school could make to so many teenagers!

Many organisations have looked at home working as a way on cutting down the number of desks and space needed; they've sold it in to their senior management as a cost saving idea and consequently, it has failed because that's not what it's really about. (Note: ID Card people - if you're not honest about the real benefits of a course of action, it is very likely to fail)

I think home working, working from home, remote working, whatever you want to call it, needs to be sold in to organisations on the basis of their Corporate Social Responsibility - to flexible working, to being a good employer, to being more productive, to lessening the carbon foot print of the organisation, to having, basically, a slightly less frazzled work force!

Just think, if just half of us, could spend one day out of five working on a PC or a laptop from home, instead of traipsing into the office what that could do for reduction in CO2 emissions, traffic, accidents and our ability to organise delivery and repair people - just that last bit would reduce massive stress in so many people!

Thanks, Gary from the Today Programme!!