Nick Clegg on Mumsnet this Thursday (16th Sept) evening between 8 and 9 pm

[JustineMumsnet]

We're delighted that the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, will be joining us for a webchat this Thursday evening 8 and 9pm.

Next week the Deputy PM will be joining other world leaders, celebrities and business leaders who are gathering in New York for the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Summit. He will be aiming for global action to reduce the shocking number of women who die during pregnancy and childbirth in the world's poorest countries.

Nick is happy to answer your questions on the UN summit as well as on his role as Deputy Prime Minster. Join us on Thursday evening or if you can't make it along then post your question (one each only please) here.

Thanks.

2 of my children were born in uk and 1 in republic of Ireland 3 and abit years ago.The Irish experience was so much better.I am a Paediatric nurse and work with Neonates and I know what a tough job it is for nurses and midwives..ie not enough.Also please answer question regarding Pope and Catholicicm regarding Choice for women also what happens to women and children when baby and mum get through labour there is still poverty and deprivation?

Well, he's obviously doesn't want to answer the questions related to the role of the DPM unless they sufficiently fluffy. It's just all TOO DIFFICULT.

Although it would be great if women were at the heart of everything DFID were to do over the next 5 years, that does not seem to match up with the current government's intention to securitise aid.

Women and children are going to be the first groups to suffer when priority is put on aid projects that are in Britain's national security interest. Don't you think?

How does it make you feel for your level of support to be 20 percentage points higher among Conservative supporters than it is among Lib Dems Mr Clegg?

Nick: what have you done or indeed stopped the Tories from doing so far that would justify the coalition?

If we are to consider empowering women to feel more in control of their lives perhaps as well as tackling high maternity morbidity we should also consider empowering women to feel safe and not to have to live with th fear of rape or domestice violence as well as poor hygiene and poor diet and poor education. Perhaps part of the development should involve a change in the male viewpoint of women, who are seen as being sexually available etc. for example the myth perpetuated that sex with a virgin cures HIV.

I hate to tell you this Mr Clegg but I can assure you that the care you and Mrs Clegg received from the midwives would have been quite different to the care new Mummy, not high profile would have received. We provide the best care we can but compare it, especially postnatally, to 5 years ago and it is HUGELY reduced.

please spare some time tonight to talk about the other issues which mums are worried about i.e. the current job situation in this country, cuts in services and personnally I'd like to hear your thoughts on education and the state of our schools

Beautifully phrased, arses.

Will you be coming back to answer our questions on the other topics then?

I think he's been scared off. You nest of vipers.

lol @ expat

I have deleted 3 Q's as none of the q's about things that are important to us have been answered.
I am all for helping third world contries but not at the expense of the people you have promised to protect.

do you really need to go to a summit to discuss this and spend silly money which could have been ploughed into education of the problems in developing countries, when a memo to all concerned with a severe "thou must do better" would probably have about the same effect! what exactly are you hoping to come away from the summit having achieved?

Hi Nick
I'm not a regular on here but your chat has lured me over.
As a parent who blogs and uses Twitter avidly, how do you propose to raise awareness of issues relevant to us using social media including the MDG Summit?

@AuntyJ

Nick - why do the cuts have to be so quick?? What do you think reaction of grassroots delegates at the party conference will be to the deep cuts in public spending?

Lots of you have said you're either unhappy or angry about the Coalition Government itself, or worried/anxious about what we're planning to do to deal with the deficit.
The crucial thing to remember about coalition politics is simply that it happens when voters say they don't want any single party to govern on their own. As a matter of principle, I don't think there's anything wrong with politicians of different parties working together in the national interest. Of course that offends people who feel really tribal about their politics, but I'm not sure if dog-eat-dog tribalism has produced good Government in the past.

As for the deficit, I wish there was a get out of jail free option. There isn't. We have the largest peacetime deficit in UK history. It's simply not fair to saddle our children with this generation's debt. There's nothing fair about spending billions and billions of pounds on debt interest which could be used for schools and hospitals instead. You can't create jobs in the long run on the sands of debt. I realise that some people think that Labour would have pursued a pain-free alternative: the truth is they were planning about four-fifths of the cuts in unprotected departments that this Government is planning, and they had announced 44 billion pounds of cuts without spelling out where they would fall.
This is not easy, not at all. But we're trying to do it over the next five years as fairly as possible, which is why we've introduced measures to lift 900,000 low paid workers out of income tax altogether, and new guarantees to pensioners.

@LadyBlaBlah

Today's headline in The Times: "The Poor Must Accept the Cuts" Nick Clegg

How can he explain this remarkable about turn? How can anyone accept anything he says as being truthful?

I hope you'll have a look at the article, not the headline which was v misleading. The point I made in my article - something Liberal Democrats have been arguing for years - is that we should be increasing incentives to work and reducing the patterns of long term benefit dependency. That's why we made a big start in raising the income tax personal allowance by 1000 pounds in the budget so that people on low pay pay much less tax. And that's why we're going to reform welfare in a way which of course supports the vulnerable, but does so in a way which encourages people into work. This will take many years, and it's complicated. A bit like our deficit reduction plan, I think too many people think these changes are going to happen overnight. They won't - instead we've tried to be upfront with people early on about what we're going to do over the coming five years.

I don't think that simply responding to the breadth and extent of criticism of the coalition on this thread by saying that some people think it is a good thing for people who have different views to eachother to work together really counts as engagement with those views.

Mr Clegg, what do you intend to do to make good on your election promise to make the banks pay for their part in the recession. So far, it seems that the poorest are being asked to foot the bill again. Isn't this a betrayal of your liberal values and of those who voted for you?

Well I,m not likely to get my question answered about Nurses retiring (180,000) over ten years. Still I have just clocked 30 yrs long service! Only 9 to go!P.S I adore my NHS xThe very best and ifI could afford time off work I would work voluntarily in Third World.

Is it just me, or has he not answered very many questions? 2 in 26 minutes?

Well, this is going well, isn't it?

ginghamgiraffe Thu 16-Sep-10 20:23:07
Nick: what have you done or indeed stopped the Tories from doing so far that would justify the coalition?

Good question, ginghamgiraffe

I feel I can answer this for Nick quite accurately; bugger all.

Is it just me, or has he not answered very many questions? 2 in 26 minutes?