Hackgate what now? Webchat with Dr Evan Harris, Vice-Chair of the Liberal Democrats' Federal Policy Committee, Wednesday 19th October - 12pm - 1pm

[KatieMumsnet]

We're pleased to announce that Dr Evan Harris, Vice-Chair of the Liberal Democrats' Federal Policy Committee, will be joining us for a live webchat on Wednesday 19th October 12pm-1pm to talk campaigns and politics. Since leaving Parliament he has worked on a number of high profile campaigns, including libel reform and the Hacked Off campaign. And has been active in the Lib Dem attempts to make changes to the Health and Social Care Bill, as well as helping to coordinate parliamentary opposition to Nadine Dorries's proposed amendment to prevent abortion providers from providing pre-abortion counselling.

Do join us on Wednesday, but if you can't please post up advance questions for Dr Harris here.

cuts in public services will always affect women more than men because women for obvious reasons are more frequent and deeper users of public services

what are those obvious reasons then?

to be clear - could you be specific - not sure what deeper users means or why you should think it obvious that women should use public services more unless you are lumping us in with children in a separate group from men who are also parents

@fiftieshousewife

Hello Dr Harris

Without wishing to be too blunt: are you a little bit glad that you lost your seat? You seem to pop up all over the place these days, working on various campaigns. Have you found it liberating? And if your constituency is still there under the Boundary Review, will you be seeking re-election?

I always say in speaking events "It is often said that every cloud has a silver lining. I stand before you today with the benefit of experience to say to you that that is just not true!" There is no benefit to being outside Parliament I can assure you. Everything I do in terms of campaigns (whether it be against much of what is in the health bill, or for phone hacking victims, free speech, equalities or women's reproductive health rights would be SO MUCH EASIER if I were in Parliament. No doubts about that. I am however pleased that I have still been able to have influence in the cross-party campaigns and within the Lib Dems - because we are a democratic party, thank goodness.

Have to dash - so a cheeky pre-follow-up. Given we all agree on the basics, education good, health care good, crime bad etc. is it time for a non-political party? One whose only agenda is to collect and use evidence to provide the best value for money on all key issues?

Hello. Just to let you know that Evan's having a few Tech probs - next answer will be with you in a bit...

@LindsayWagner

Hello Evan

I was massively impressed by your call at LibDem conference for tabloids which contain topless pictures of women not to be displayed where children can see them - story here.

I still remember the confused mixture of shame and anger I felt as an adolescent when confronted by naked images of girls not much older than I was, in the newsagent, on buses - everywhere in fact. I felt deeply vulnerable - that my own body was on display, to be assessed and commented upon, more or less up for grabs. It's astonishing to me that, 30 years later, my own children are still being given the message that girls' bodies are objects to be leered/jeered at.

Regardless of whether one considers these images to objectify women (and clearly I do), it's entirely illogical that we should protect children from viewing sexualised material on the TV via the watershed, and yet allow them to be exposed to it in newspapers.

But how will your proposal work? IMO, putting them on a higher shelf won't effectively prevent children being exposed to sexualising/objectifying images - so why aren't you calling for a complete ban?

The motion we passed at Lib Dem conference called for the same rules to apply to sexual portrayals of women( objectification you might call it) in so called family newspapers' , which are freely for children to see,as already apply to pre watershed broadcasting.

what this would mean in practice is that you could for example show anything that is shown in prime time health programmes ( e.g. 8 pm Channel 4 teenage agony aunt type programmes which include nudity in context ) and edgy soap opera story-lines (e.g. the infamous* Brookside lesbian kiss) but would not allow the random portrayal of women's breasts for the sole purpose of titillation.

Exactly how this is don e remains to be seen but you should all ask Justine (who is watching em type this) to makes sure Mumsnet campaigns on this issue including through the Leveson inquiry on press standards which is an ideal opportunity to say clean up this aspect of the press.

Anyone who knows my work knows that I am a leading advocate of free expression, and no prude but it is legitimate to restrict the material available to children especially when it allows purely sexual images of women to be seen a s normal. It clearly gives girls at school an even harder time from teasing than they'd already have and is of no value to school boys either.

I always supported Claire Short's campaign on this although the treatment I've had from the tabloids ( The Sun's villain of the week, is nothing like the hassle that Claire had.

*The far too young assistant at Mumsnet can't believe it was ever infamous!

@OnlyWantsOne

What's his favourite biscuit?

I brought them with so that I can't be accused of making up answers to contentious questions..

McVities White Choc Chip cookie- they must be more slimming than the dark chocolate surely, because it doesn't look like chocolate! Surely? No? Damn!

@DamnYouAutocorrect

Speaking of PR - do you think that the thumping AV referendum defeat (AV not being proportional of course) was helpful for the long-term prospects of PR, in a weird sort of way? Do you think we'll get another chance to change the electoral system in this generation?

No and I hope so but it can't be guaranteed

@entropygirl

What can be done to persuade politicians in general that evidence is more important than politics or even common sense in deciding policy? For example it might seem logical to have a zero tolerance rule on drugs but is that actually the most effective way to reduce drug use? No amount of political posturing can answer that. But evidence can.

That is a big question which should get a long answer.

But essentially we need to
a) make sure that politicians understand what evidence - and different types of evidence - is.
b) ensure they have the recognition of the need to seek advice from experts on matters where that is important
c) that scientific and other expert advisory committees remain independent of the ministers they are advising (see the David Nutt saga)
d) that civil service science advisers are not frozen out and can report to the Govt Chief Scientist egregious misbehaviour by politicians and officials in respect of evidence or statistics.
e) and crucially we need to ensure that politicians realise there's a price to pay politically for being anti-science just like there is for being dodgy on Climate Change or equality. This last is something I'm working on.

@Crumblemum

I think fiftieshousewife has a good point. Do you think that politicians are so disrespected/ disregarded these days that actually being an elected MP limits the effect you can have on causes?

Maybe the loss of trust (or at least perceived loss of trust) in the political classes is one of the reasons you're now doing more campaigning and other organisations like 38 degrees (and dare I say it Mumsnet) are more vocal in the press.

Does noise always = action though? Would you say your influence to change voters lives for the better was greater now or as an MP?

I am not doing more than I was doing before. It is much more difficult from outside the House alas.

@Pram1nTheHall

What's your feeling about how the Hackgate saga is going to work out? From the layman's (laywoman's?) perspective it looks as though it's all gone quiet and News International have pretty much got away with it.

And have you and Tom Watson ever considered becoming a crime-fighting duo?

Hacked Off (who I advise on political, legislative and other matters) is working hard to keep up the pressure. We took Hugh Grant round all the party conferences which was a real effort I can tell you (he assures me that he holds me personally responsible for imposing those three days of hard work and hassle on him - Gulp!). That kept the pressure on the politicians publicly and privately not to wimp out of what has to be done.

In addition we are working on making "No win no fee" legal funding arrangements still available for less well-off people to take action against intrusive or defamatory newspaper articles.

And we have been working with victims of phone hacking to make sure that they have a clear message to give to the Leveson Public Inquiry.

We are also stressing that you can have better regulation of the press, especially tabloid excesses while at the same time nurturing proper public interest journalism. In other words - or in a cliche - we won't be "throwing out the baby with the bath water".

I should say that I am very impressed with the willingness, studiousness and hard work of Hugh Grant and others in this area. Mind you some conference delegates turned up at our fringe meeting disappointed that it wasn't Hugh Laurie as they'd been told!

@swallowedAfly

cuts in public services will always affect women more than men because women for obvious reasons are more frequent and deeper users of public services

what are those obvious reasons then?

Women are greater users of almost all council services, care services and education services. They also access the NHS more than men for themselves and of course for their families.

If there are staff cuts or recruitment freezes in the public services this will impact more on women who make up a higher proportion of teachers and nurses and care workers for example.

Reductions or freezing of benefits will also impact on women disproportionately as the main recipient of benefits within families.

I do though think this is all pretty obvious though as I said.

@entropygirl

Have to dash - so a cheeky pre-follow-up. Given we all agree on the basics, education good, health care good, crime bad etc. is it time for a non-political party? One whose only agenda is to collect and use evidence to provide the best value for money on all key issues?

Not sure that could ever work. there is plenty of scope for ideological disagreement within politics even within those areas you mention. Vive la difference!

i suppose it is the 'why' i'm interested in rather than the 'women are obviously more dependent on all sorts of services' which implies that's just the way it is by some magical or natural ordering.

if women have more dependency then there is already inequality and if you then take away what even more that inequality deepens.

thanks for answering q's but i disagree that it is just something natural that a) women are dependent on public services and b) cutting public services knowing that it will deepen gender inequality is somehow ok or logical.

@painterlyswoosh

I saw yesterday that someone has been imprisoned for 8 months in Scotland for writing sectarian hate speech on a Facebook page. Can you explain why a judge is able to do this? I don't know anything about the law, but this seems crazy to me. www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-15333744 (most definitely not agreeing with sentiment of hate speech, more disagreeing with prison sentence for words typed on a screen)

\

This is a complex area and Scottish law is often different from English.

I led the campaign to have a narrow "inciting religious hatred" law which we won by one vote in the House of Commons (one of only 3 times Tony Blair lost a vote) which requires words to be intentionally inciting hatred and to use language that is not just insulting or abusive but also threatening., It looks as though the stuff on that website would qualify as threatening in English law. In general though we should be VERY wary about criminalisng speech not least because it creates free speech martyrs and gives yobs or extremists publicity for their views,

@swallowedAfly

i suppose it is the 'why' i'm interested in rather than the 'women are obviously more dependent on all sorts of services' which implies that's just the way it is by some magical or natural ordering.

if women have more dependency then there is already inequality and if you then take away what even more that inequality deepens.

thanks for answering q's but i disagree that it is just something natural that a) women are dependent on public services and b) cutting public services knowing that it will deepen gender inequality is somehow ok or logical.

Women use public services more than men. i make no judgement but it is a true fact.

Cutting public services is not something any Government wants to do but the deficit has to be tackled. Even Labour have said they would cut public services. The Government were wrong not to do a proper equalities impact assessment on the June 2010 budget and were rightly criticised.

the judgement is important though - it's the key. it is the disadvantaged who are most reliant on public services - so disadvantage makes women more dependent, cuts increase the disadvantage making things yet more unequal and making women even more dependent.

i guess this fits in with the other question about how we can get policy makers to go with evidence rather than what they think is common sense or what is political agenda.

@NormaSatansFelcher

Do you think that your party has been a moderating influence on the Tories? And if so how on earth will they ever convince a (feeling betrayed) electorate of that and ever get them to vote for you again?

Are you glad you aren't part of it?

Yes in many areas the Coalition has done things a Tory Government never would have and stopped doing things a Tory Government would have done.

Examples of both abound (equal marriage for LGBT for example) and the retention of the Human Rights Act.

Lib Dems knew back in May 2010 when choosing Coalition over an unstable minority Government and a second snap election (which would have delivered a Tory majority) that it would be difficult to get the message across and in fact last March changed the strategy form one of seeking to show we get on very well with the Tories in the interests of good Government to one of seeking show that we are very different in outlook and many policies. It will be difficult to get that across of course, the media in this country has still not understood that compromise is not betrayal and that you can work with another party without agreeing with them on everything.

Thanks for all the questions - hope my answers were not entirely predictable. All typing errors are the exclusive fault of whoever designed Apple keyboards - cant recall the guy's name. Thanks to Katie, Justine, Rowan and Frances for their help and hospitality today

Looking forward to working with Mumsnet on Libel Reform in the future, and maybe even the portrayal of women to children in family newspapers....

Evan

Oh thank you for answering my question. Am slightly [hblush] now as I realise I still have my disgusting haloween name!