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.

i come from castleford a very small mining area and if i had voted tories my dad would have disowned me lol just like if iever buy the sun newspaper aswell ;)

Amapoleon - Jammie Dodger natch

Spend money on public services?? So why has my local hospital closed 2 wards and told any nurse above HCA level to re-apply for their jobs?

any response to the education questions???

Go on Nick, answer the Fawcett Society question (someone repost it quick) before we start to throw biscuits at you!

Elected politicians cannot pick and chose what they are asked guys!!! We are not talking to Brad Pitt

Spend money on public services?? So why has my local hospital closed 2 wards and told any nurse above HCA level to re-apply for their jobs?

If you voted Lib Dem and didn't realise that you were voting for a party that believe in coalition governments then you probably voted for the wrong party.

That doesn't mean you should feel betrayed. It means you should have done more investigation in the policies you were voting for.

(I'm not including people willing to give the coalition a go and deciding they didn't like the way it was heading in this - I think that's a different thing)

Yes - agree with leavingonajetplace. Maiakins question.

Fawcett Society answer is coming, promise (we won't let him out otherwise )

Can I repeat my q from before?

You say that "we are reorganising our entire aid programme to put women at the heart of everything we do in developing countries"

But we've also been told that new national security council is requiring that national security considerations are placed at the heart of aid projects.

How can both be true? Exaclty what will be the implications of a securitised development budget for the goal of improving maternal and neonatal health?

Yes you may disagree about Trident but you're not going to DO anything about it until after the next election are you. The reason? Because the coalition would implode if you tried. Despite the fact that delaying a decision will cost the country more money. So no, I don't find it refreshing, I find it the same old story of a party that has a sniff of power and wants to hang on at any price - a price which is paid by the taxpayer whilst you are cutting money to frontline services.

Please correct me if i am wrong Mr Clegg.

well i knew my question about womens health wouldnt be answered = typical! makes me mad = very mmad

Missbee

Many regions of the world are so politically unstable that the global development goals on maternal health will never even reach them e.g. Burma, North Korea. Does the coalition government intend to take a more active role in tackling these issues.

p.s controversial, but, am a lib dem and a fan of the coalition so far.

don't let him out justine until he answers some of the education questions as well

@edam

Nick, as you will know, the Fawcett Society is seeking a judicial review of your government's failure to carry out the required equality audit before the budget.

How can you persuade women - and men who care about equality - that your party notices or cares about discrimination when you've been happy to help the Tories attack women, children, the poor and those least able to help themselves? That's not just my view of the budget, it's what the IFS data and the equality data in the House of Commons library statistics showed.

It's all very well to go to international conventions and talk about deaths during pregancy and childbirth, but so far your actions don't suggest you are actually committed to equality.

Show me one person in the Cabinet who has ever lived in poverty, or has the faintest idea what life is like for ordinary families. That doesn't include Old Etonians or people married to bankers, btw.

We've got a really difficult job to do: deal with the deficit, because it's impossible to fund welfare and public services if we keep wasting money on debt interest instead; but do it in a way which also promotes fairness. We're trying hard to get the balance right: that's why we've given the triple lock guarantee to pensioners (their pensions will now rise automatically by 2.5%, earnings, inflation - finally, years after the earnings link was broken in the 1980s); that's why at the time of the CSR in October we'll announce a "Pupil Premium", a policy I first wrote about a decade ago, which will allocate additional money to children in school from the most disadvantaged backgrounds; why we've ended the grotesque scandal under Labour's tax system that a multimillionaire paid a lower rate of tax on their capital gains than their cleaners did on their wages; why we've massively increased child tax credits etc.
Of course deficit reduction on the scale necessary isn't easy, or without losers. But some of the analysis bandied about to prove that our plans are "regressive" are very partial, including for eg making all sorts of assumptions about what we will do in future budgets (not yet decided) or completely ignoring the countervailing effects of job creation in future years.

What a waste of time.

The replied just look like they have been written in advanced and used to answer a question with some relevance.

EDAM: Nick, as you will know, the Fawcett Society is seeking a judicial review of your government's failure to carry out the required equality audit before the budget.

How can you persuade women - and men who care about equality - that your party notices or cares about discrimination when you've been happy to help the Tories attack women, children, the poor and those least able to help themselves? That's not just my view of the budget, it's what the IFS data and the equality data in the House of Commons library statistics showed.

It's all very well to go to international conventions and talk about deaths during pregancy and childbirth, but so far your actions don't suggest you are actually committed to equality.

Also, why has the government not even bothered to reply to the Fawcett Society in the required timescale?

MNHQ I want to assure you that I certainly will be reading through the whole thread, looking through all of the questions that I haven't had a chance to answer. I know that this is not an easy time for a lot of people and this government certainly has no intention of sticking our head in the sand over that.

@LilyBolero

MNHQ - Please please can you ensure Nick Clegg reads the whole thread, not just selected questions? There is SUCH depth of feeling, and he has to know how people actually feel about what's happened, not just read a few sanitised questions. If he is interested in knowing how the electorate feel, this is a pretty good example, and really shows how ordinary people (to coin a phrase that I really never wanted to hear again, 'hard working families) are suffering or are terrified about the future.

I have this vision of Justine and Carrie acting a pincer movement around Mr Clegg now!

Come on Nick"The Young Ones" is on telly soon. Please answer a wee nursey!

Nick

"The UK supports the World Health Organisation?s (WHO) International Code of Marketing of Breast Milk Substitutes."

That's great but are you aware that actually the UK has not fully implemented the Code. Follow on formula, which is marketed to babies from 6 months+, was invented by the marketing companies solely in order to advertise.

The UK needs to lead on this issue because in the USA formula is not only advertised but samples are handed out by paediatricians.

Formula companies continue to blatently disregard the code in developing countries.

Please see baby milk action for more info.

Is 'git' a sweary word?

I completely agree - but unfortunately there is no quick fix, and no single action that will save a mother's life from complications in pregnancy and childbirth.
That's why the UK is taking a comprehensive approach to improving maternal health in poor countries focussing not only on access to essential health services - and that includes doctors, nurses and midwives - but also focusing on the wider infrastructure such as roads, electricity and water. Next week at the MDG Summit, I will be urging other world leaders to step up their efforts too - it's only through collective action that we will make a difference.

@dinkystinky

A maternal death related query for Mr Clegg: given in the poorest countries, so many factors (distance from health facilities in case of complications, lack of infrastructure, poverty of population, unhealthy living conditions where clean water and clean air is far from the norm,lack of education and suspicion of the new, to name but a few) contribute to the maternal death statistics, how is this conference actually envisaged to tackle all of these contributing issues?