So when are we going to get a British Hollande?

[breadandbutterfly]

The man has won an election coming up from behind, his first acts in office are to select loads of female ministers and to cut his own salary and those of his ministers by 30%. I like the cut of his jib.

Plus he has positive messages on growth.

He's best mates with Obama or about to be...

So can we have a leader in the UK who leads from the front with policies like these, please?

Ahh, of course. If I think that quotas are reactionary, I'm sexist. The same tired old game the Left plays of Closing Down The Argument by implying their opponent is a bad person.

Why does the gender ratio even matter? I don't hear people chanting on the rooftops because 90% of primary school teachers are female. If it doesn't matter for schools or hospitals, why does it matter for politics?

Because teachers and nurses have no power, that's why.

It matters that power is not concentrated in the hands of a few middle-aged white men because on the whole, the people in power put through policies that benefit them and people like them. The current lot in power have no understanding of the lives of ordinary women - and that shows in their policies (and their poll ratings).

And no-one was accusing you of being sexist.

Agree there's limited value in trying to assess Hollande after a week. There's nothing he can do about the macroeconomic situation so we'll need to see how high he sets the expectations after the legislative elections, by which time Greece's future may be clearer, too. And all European leaders are pro-growth (Cameron's been trying to get his peers to focus on it since he got to the European Council table). But there are many different ideas about how to achieve it.

On the subject of women's representation in politics, would be interested to know how many of those of you lamenting the low proportion are actively involved in politics yourselves, doing something about it.

Yes, Greece is more interesting; a complete challenge to rule by banks.

The thing is that the world economy is in such a mess that there is no one that can really not implement some sort of harsh austerity measures.

Or to turn that on its head, no-one who can afford not to implement some sort of growth policies...

Put it this way, if you are in debt and the interest is eating up all your earnings then the solution is not to cut until you starving and in rags - because that is not sustainable nor desirable nor likely to get you out of the hole you're in - but to quickly raise your salary so you can afford to pay down your debts. Whilst taking a luxury holiday or buying a flash car is not advisable, nor is selling your car so you can't get to work or becoming homeless so you turn up to interviews looking like you've slept in a bush.

Advocates of austerity don't seem to be able to distinguish between sensible cutting of luxuries and stupid cutting of vital infrastructure, training etc.

Because teachers and nurses have no power, that's why.

Teachers have no power, apart from the ability to form the entire country's mental worldview. And I think it's pretty clear that having 90% of the primary teaching population consisting of women is doing considerable damage to boys' academic achievement.

It matters that power is not concentrated in the hands of a few middle-aged white men because on the whole, the people in power put through policies that benefit them and people like them. The current lot in power have no understanding of the lives of ordinary women - and that shows in their policies (and their poll ratings).

What makes someone with a PPE degree from Oxford and a vagina better than one who has an identical background but a penis? Gender quotas won't solve Britain's problem which is half of the HoC is made up of people who, a hundred years ago, would be called 'gentry'. That's the case throughout all the three parties. Do you think that because these privately-educated, upper-middle-class people don't have schlongs that they understand what it is to raise two kids on one average salary?

And no-one was accusing you of being sexist.

Covertly, you were. You wrote 'unless you think there aren't enough women capable of being ministers'. So if I say 'yes, there are not enough women' you can accuse me of sexism. If I say 'no, there are plenty of women' you can say 'why not use quotas to push them ahead?'

I'll tell you why I oppose quotas for politics and for business. There aren't enough good quality women candidates. There are two good reasons for that, and only one of them is fixable with quotas.

The first reason is that a 'culture' forms which excludes people who 'aren't like us'. This happens in every field. Take journalism. Look at the number of wealthy Islingtonites who go in to the media profession. Look at the BBC. Tell me why it is that there isn't a single Marxist MP or councillor but the BBC Comedy controller manages to find seven of them to go on Radio 4 and tell jokes about Thatcher.
It's "clubbability". People hire people like them because people like people like them.
Quotas would force this to change.
The second reason is that women make the decision to cut back on their careers to have children. It's biological, it's genetic and it's just how they are. Women outearn men until their early 30s. The reason for that? Career breaks to raise a family. Politics is a hard business. Being an MP is a seven-day-a-week job. Have you seen an MPs diary? Unless the woman has a househusband or staff, being an MP and mother is almost impossible.
You can't change that situation with quotas.

I don't actually agree with anything you've put there, flat pack. But you stop half way. No, having 50% women is certainly not the solution to everything - but its a good first step.

i don't think you're going to naturally get 50% reoresentation of male and female in any profession - teachers or MPs or whatever, because, as you say, people choose professions to fit in with their needs and culture - which in the case of women means fitting in with their biology. But I think that as MPs have a special role - that of representing us, all of us - it is rather more vital that they are not primarily elderly white men than it is that bus drivers say, are not primarily male. Plus the power thing, as I said before. So I do think it is one situation wheere quotas are actually desirable.

I don't worry too much about finding women who can hack it - not as though the male candidates we're getting are all top notch! In a country with 30 odd million women we can find 300 or so decent female ones without too much trouble, I'm sure.

Argh - apologies, flat pack - supposed to read 'I don't actually DISagree with anything you've written' - big difference!!!

The solution to the problem is relatively simple in principle although hard to achieve in practice, and one that appeals to my ideology, and that's to de-centralise the government. Farm out as many powers as possible to as low a level as possible. Leave Parliament to run stuff that has to be centralised, which isn't much. Counties and cities can run their own medical care, emergency services, and education.

Devolving power, and just as importantly revenue raising, distributes power away from the HoC, making it far less important and, consequently making quotas irrelevant.

If it is all devolved, how do you ensure that it is being done fairly? eg medical care or education - do you really want the quality of these left up to the whims of individual areas? Surely you end up with more administrators but all spread out doing their own thing. Not clear how or why this would be fairer or more cost-effective.

If it is all devolved, how do you ensure that it is being done fairly? eg medical care or education - do you really want the quality of these left up to the whims of individual areas? Surely you end up with more administrators but all spread out doing their own thing. Not clear how or why this would be fairer or more cost-effective.

What's "fair"? Under Labour the area where I live saw hefty rises in tax while our services collapsed. The local hospital became a byword for corruption and lethality, urgently needed infrastructure programmes were cancelled, the roads are falling apart due to lack of maintenance. Meanwhile money was shovelled hand-over-fist in to Labour areas and marginal seats. Is that 'fair'? Given a choice between that, and the 'whims' - or what I prefer to think of as priorities of voters - I'll take the view of the local electorate.

Since we're on the subject of whims, remember that money doled out by central government will always be at the whim of whichever party is in power. At the moment 90% of revenue spent by local councils isn't raised by them but is delivered from the centre in block grants. We have the most centralised government system in the western world. Your council vote makes no difference because councils have practically no powers whatsoever. So Labour from 1997 to 2010 were able to starve areas like mine of revenue and funnel it in to Labour-voting areas. If it was done in a banana republic it would be called vote-buying. Did you know that Hackney receives as much central government money as the whole of Kent does?

So how do we stop local councils getting it wrong? Well, if people don't like how their tax money is being raised and spent in their local area, they have a tool called the vote. And unlike now, your vote in the local council election would really matter, because your council would have considerable powers. That's what makes it 'fairer'. It means that the responsibility lies closer to the people who pay for it.

Yes, I do want the quality of education and healthcare left up to the local area. Who knows best what's needed? Bureaucrats and MPs or local people?

Do you ever read the Rotten Boroughs section of Private Eye? Hardly as though local councillors were averse to taking backhanders or as though local politics was all lovely and based on local needs. Where I live, it is every bit as unaccountable as Westminster. My local hospitals and schools are excellent, though as they are not dependent on the whim of local council bigwigs but decided according to national policies.

We must live in different countries - my local ara has only been starved of funds since 2010. (I live in a nice Tory shire.) But my local hospitals etc improved under Labour.

I know full well that local politics can be corrupt. However, there is a sure-fire mechanism for the removal of those corrupt local politicians and at that micro scale it's possible to do it. It's possible to raise a petition amongst your local townspeople, possible to overthrow a corrupt local administration and possible to change the way things run locally. On the country-wide scale that simply isn't achievable. Parliament can ignore petitions (and always does) and policies which damage one area can be ignored since that one area can't affect the final vote.

I can't understand why you are averse to the basic democratic principle that the people who pay the taxes have the right to choose how that money is spent. The idea that this simple democratic principle is a 'whim' is baffling to me. What makes you think that local councillors are swayed by 'whims' and that MPs and Civil Service workers are serious-minded men and women immune to personal prejudice, vanity, or arrogance?