The Lib Dem Voice survey results I mention are covered in the piece Which four Liberal Democrat ministers have most improved their standings in 2011? and for more on why I rate Ed Davey’s record see Community Buying: a welcome move from Ed Davey (an approach very relevant to his new post) and Ed Davey: someone getting the messaging right.

Helped by having known for a long time that Friday’s events might occur, Nick Clegg and the media team handled events very calmly and efficiently in the circumstances I thought, with the reshuffle and surrounding media coverage looked after well.

The reshuffle also throws some light on how far Nick Clegg is willing to take his commitment to greater diversity in Liberal Democrat ranks. Both the new entrants to government are women (Jo Swinson and Jenny Willott), but once again the Liberal Democrat Cabinet ranks are solidly male. How much you view that as glass part full or glass mostly empty depends mostly on your expectations I suspect.

It is likely that in addition to joining the government, Jo Swinson will take over as chair of the Federal Policy Committee – the first time a woman has chaired the body. This is a very influential role in the party, particularly when it comes to general election manifestos, and given that the majority of the electorate is female it is perhaps about time that the party had a talented woman in the post. Jo has also got a very good track record at turning potentially dry, abstract policy into effective campaigns which generate media coverage. Assuming she does take up the post, her influence on the policy process will be fascinating to watch – and very positive.

* Mark Pack is Co-Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and writes a monthly newsletter about the Liberal Democrats.

Completing the changes, Jenny Willott becomes an Assisstant Government Whip, and Jo Swinson replaces Norman Lamb as Nick Clegg’s PPS.

Congratulations to those Lib Dem MPs taking up new positions in government.

Co-founder of the Campaign for Body Confidence, Jo is currently chairing a Parliamentary Inquiry into the causes and consequences of body image anxiety.

Her calls come as the retail market floods with health fads and “miracle weight-loss products screaming out at people to diet as part of New Year resolutions.  Jo  is concerned that this will have a damaging effect on public health.

Jo said:

 “After Christmas, the market is awash with dieting advice as people try and lose extra pounds put on over the festive period.

“These drastic diet plans often promote weight loss in an unhealthy way, and the vast majority of people who follow them will end up weighing more than they did before they started the diet.

“It is really important to adopt a healthy lifestyle but I am concerned that this constant bombardment of unrealistic diet advice is having a really negative effect on society, especially young people.  Evidence to the Parliamentary Inquiry in December from psychiatrists specialising in eating disorders clearly stated that extreme dieting is most often the trigger for eating disorders developing.

“I have campaigned tirelessly to urge advertisers and retailers to recognise the consequences and damage done by constantly flooding the market with a narrow range of unrealistic images of what the industry deems to be beautiful.

“We need to go further though. We need to empower our young people with the confidence to have a positive body image, happy in their own skin. This needs to be part of our young people’s classroom education.  Children are growing up with the idea that body dissatisfaction is a rite of passage, and this needs to stop.

“Liberal Democrats believe in the freedom of companies to advertise but we also believe in the freedom of young people to develop their self-esteem and to be as comfortable as possible with their bodies.

“I want more focus on encouraging young women and men to adopt a healthy lifestyle, and to recognise that their value comes from who they are and what they do, not just what they look like.”

* Caron Lindsay is Wednesday editor at Lib Dem Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings

Jo Swinson asked:

Ten years on from the military intervention, more than 3 million girls in Afghanistan are now in school. With the Bonn conference on Monday, will the Prime Minister send a clear message that the rights of those girls should not be traded away in a false choice between women’s rights and security? The evidence shows that women’s involvement in post-conflict resolution is essential for stability.

The Prime Minister agreed:

All those of us who have been to Afghanistan and met women MPs and other leaders in that country who want to stand up for women’s rights know what an incredible job those people are doing, and we are on their side.

Roger Williams asked about the 90% of small firms in his constituency who are unincorporated and will therefore not benefit from the reduction in corporation tax. Will they have similar tax incentives announced in the spring Budget? – he asked.

The Prime Minister replied that the government will not wait until the Budget to help those businesses but has “already extended the rate relief freeze for small businesses, and the national loan guarantee scheme, which will help small businesses to access credit, will be up and running soon.”

Bob Russell had an impromptu intervention printed in Hansard when he interrupted Frank Roy (Lab) to say: “you are not on strike”, after Mr Roy said ” In every city and village in the country, home helps, carers, nurses and teachers are on strike for the very first time in their lives. These hard-working people—”.

There was one of the most “red-blooded” and noisy confrontations between Ed Miliband and David Cameron. Unusually, Cameron was book-ended by two LibDems, in the shape of Nick Clegg, his constant right-hand man at PMQs, and, on this occasion, Danny Alexander on his left.

They fed snippets of information to DC while Ed Balls was at his most participatory as Ed Miliband’s right-hand nodding dog.

I thought the best line came from Ed Miliband, who said in the midst of the exchanges on the public service strike:

The difference is that, unlike the Prime Minister, I am not going to demonise the dinner lady, the cleaner or the nurse, people who earn in a week what the Chancellor pays for his annual skiing holiday.

It would have been brilliant, had he not said “week” rather than “year”, as he meant to. Unless the Chancellor and his family are hitch-hiking to Klosters these days…

At one point Ed Miliband said that the PM “doesn’t understand his own policy” on pension reform. This accusation had David Cameron frenetically looking for an answer in his folder. If you look at the House of Commons video of this at 12:12:02, you don’t have to be a lip-reader to see our Prime Minister replying, from his seat, with what looks like a word beginning with “F”, spoken into his folder. Is it possible, par chance, that a word passed the Prime Ministerial lips which has an Anglo-Saxon etymological heritage? Perish the thought….

Ed Miliband showed real passion, particularly on the impact of tax credits.

David Cameron was being somewhat disingenuous with numbers. He said:

In terms of the reforms we are making, a nurse retiring on a salary of just over £34,000 today would get a pension of £17,000, but in future she would get over £22,000. A teacher retiring on a salary of £37,000 would have got £19,000, but will now get £25,000.

…thereby ignoring the fact that the nurse in question will have to work for longer and pay in higher pension contributions.

As Channel 4 News’ excellent FactCheck blog concludes, public service workers will be worse off than they are now, as a result of the changes, but they will still have better pensions than most of the private sector workers who pay for much of their (public sector) pensions.

Paul Walter blogs at Liberal Burblings

She was not alone. World champion swimmer Rebecca Adlington took to Twitter to say that there were many women in sport who deserve recognition this year.

Attention was also given to how those shortlists were made up - voted for  predominantly by male sports editors of national newspapers and, inexplicably,  representatives of lads’ Mags Nuts and Zoo.

Four MPs, our own Jo Swinson, and Labour’s Stella Creasy, Alison McGovern and Joan Walley, have asked for a meeting with BBC Director General Mark Thomson to “discuss how to improve the celebration of women in sporting life.”

Their letter to him said:

This outcome is extremely unhelpful to the promotion of women’s’ sport in the UK.  It will result in the annual TV programme – usually a great occasion for British sport – ignoring women’s achievements in 2011.

This bias has led to a number of outstanding sporting achievements by women being entirely disregarded. Rebecca Adlington, Keri-Anne Payne, Victoria Pendleton, Chrissie Wellington, Nicola Adams, Jessica Ennis, Sarah Stevenson,  Beth Tweddle, Hannah England and Kath Grainger, among others, have all been fantastically successful within their respective fields, yet none have made the shortlist.  Chrissie Wellington, for example, has set two new world records in 2011. She even won the 2011 Ironman World Championship race despite suffering from a number of serious injuries, but has not received any recognition for this on the shortlist.

A great deal of work is done each year by the sporting community to encourage women and girls into sport, and the absence of women from this award severely undermines those efforts.

They specifically raised the issue of the inclusion of Nuts and Zoo while women’s and sports magazines were left out of the process and asked for action to make sure that we don’t end up with an all male shortlist in future years.

We will bring you news of the reply they receive in due course.

Much of the good Liberal Youth does goes unnoticed by the wider party. So before the English Council make a decision that will determine the future of youth and student representation in our party, I want to lay before you some of the vital work Liberal Youth does that really matters to our party.
 
Liberal Youth is a major recruiter of new members and activists up and down the country.  Liberal Youth stalls at University and college Fresher’s Fairs are the single largest recruitment drive for the party and whilst, since the tuition fee vote, this has become much more challenging , Liberal Youth has persevered and our branches managed to recruit hundreds of new members in the first 30 days of the recruitment campaign, this would not be possible in the future without support from the English party.
 
The great strength of the current system is the direct relationship between our funding and our members. Each member we gain provides a financial incentive for us to recruit new blood and strengthens our party as a whole and is far better than any bid system the English Council Executive could devise.
 
Since it was formed Liberal Youth has been training and developing the activists and candidates of tomorrow.
 
Every year we hold our residential training weekend ‘Activate!’ Open, for free, to any young member to attend and receive expert training, share experiences and develop their skills.
 
Some of the party’s best and brightest began their careers at Liberal Youth’s Activate! Indeed, one graduate of our first ever Activate! was the impressive Jo Swinson MP.   Our most recent Activate! was kindly hosted by Kendal Lib Dems and Tim Farron MP who described the event as  ‘an outstanding opportunity for young people to receive training and develop skills unavailable to them anywhere else in the party’. 
 
We also provide training events at conference and at local and regional events both for our members and for local parties, to help them recruit and get the most out of their young activists and help win the youth vote. A cut to our funding will put young member’s development at risk.
 
Young Lib Dems are not just campaigners, however, we also have opinions and ideas and we are one of the major drivers of new policy at our conferences.
 
Liberal Youth is the voice of young members and we’re not afraid to shout it out loud.  In recent years Liberal Youth has, on more than one occasion, been the single largest source of policy motions at federal conference outside of the Federal Policy Committee. We use our party’s unique democratic structure to give young people a voice in a way that our rivals, to Young Labour and Conservative Future, could only dream of. 
 
We take this responsibility very seriously and we don’t just submit motions on stereotypical youth issues, we also make a valuable contribution to all areas of the party’s policy.  At the last Conference Liberal Youth proposed a radical policy on the reform of Employment Support allowance, parts of which have already been adopted by the Coalition, and we are lobbying hard for the rest. Liberal Youth works hard to ensure our government is fair and our party’s policy is implemented.
 
Most importantly of all Liberal Youth is about representation.
 
It is our role to provide a voice for young people at all levels of the party. Nick Clegg believes ‘Liberal Youth are the Independent voice of young people in our party – it is important that we make sure their voice is heard.’ That independence and our voice could be put at risk because of this proposal.
 
Without  Liberal Youth, how many young people would be in Federal Policy Committee? Would take the podium at conference? How many would turn up to our party committees to, including tomorrow’s English Council meeting, to keep our internal democracy vibrant?
 
Young members provide the party with activists but it is Liberal Youth that provides those young members with a voice.  We understand the party won’t always do what we want, but we won’t give up the right to have them listen to us first.  
 
Right now everything the Youth party does so well is in jeopardy, I don’t believe that the English Council Executive know just how serious Liberal Youth’s funding situation is or this proposal would not be on the table. 
 
Liberal Youth has in recent years faced cut after cut to all its sources of funding, our 2012 budget is stripped to the barebones, paying only for the organisations essential activities, operating costs, conferences, training and our recruitment campaign.  There is no fat left to cut. Losing any funding would mean the end of at least one of these services, that would unfair to our young members and damaging to the party as a whole.

The English party has been a valued partner in making youth representation happen for decades. I hope members of English Council will consider this when they vote tomorrow.

Tom Wood is Chair of Liberal Youth.

L’Oréal has been forced to pull ad campaigns featuring Pretty Woman star Julia Roberts and supermodel Christy Turlington, after the advertising watchdog upheld complaints by Liberal Democrat MP Jo Swinson that the images were overly airbrushed.

Swinson, who has waged a long-running campaign against “overly perfected and unrealistic images” of women in adverts, lodged complaints with the Advertising Standards Authority about the magazine campaigns for L’Oréal-owned brands Lancôme and Maybelline. The ASA ruled that both ads breached the advertising standards code for exaggeration and being misleading and banned them from future publication.

L’Oréal’s two-page ad featuring Roberts, who is the face of Lancôme, promoted a foundation called Teint Miracle, which it claims creates a “natural light” that emanates from beautiful skin. It was shot by renowned fashion photographer Mario Testino. The ad for Maybelline featured Turlington promoting a foundation called The Eraser, which is claimed to be an “anti-ageing” product. In the ad, parts of Turlington’s face are shown covered by the foundation while other parts are not, in order to show the effects of the product.

Swinson complained that images of both celebrities had been digitally manipulated and were “not representative of the results the product could achieve”.

Commenting on the ruling, Jo Swinson said:

This ruling demonstrates that the advertising regulator is acknowledging the dishonest and misleading nature of excessive retouching. Pictures of flawless skin and super-slim bodies are all around, but they don’t reflect reality. With one in four people feeling depressed about their body, it’s time to consider how these idealised images are distorting our idea of beauty.

Shockingly, even the ASA weren’t contractually allowed to see the pre-production photo of Julia Roberts. It shows just how ridiculous things have become when there is such fear over an unairbrushed photo that even the advertising regulator isn’t permitted to see it. Excessive airbrushing and digital manipulation techniques have become the norm, but both Christy Turlington and Julia Roberts are naturally beautiful women who don’t need retouching to look great. This ban sends a powerful message to advertisers – let’s get back to reality.

Sophie, who’s 20, is studying Psychology at Glasgow University. Sophie has campaigned with Liberal Youth Scotland on issues such as equal marriage, a fair deal for students and increased powers for the Scottish parliament.

Sophie was a key member of Katy Gordon’s campaign team in Glasgow North last year and stood herself in Glasgow Maryhill and Springburn in the Holyrood elections this year.

I’ve known her since she came to Scotland and have found her to be persuasive, intelligent and articulate, with a cool head, and an extremely likeable manner. She’s the ideal person to fight this by-election.

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie MSP said:

I am delighted that Sophie has been chosen as our candidate for this important by-election and I congratulate her on this achievement.

Sophie is the right choice for Inverclyde. She is a rising star within the Party and I know that she will be a fresh new voice for Inverclyde at Westminster.

Sophie has a brilliant track record, having given her time over to volunteering and working in a care home. It is time for a real change in Inverclyde and Sophie and the Scottish Liberal Democrats will make that change.

Liberal Democrats have real solutions and voters here can put their faith in the younger generation to fight for Inverclyde.

Deputy Leader and East Dunbartonshire MP Jo Swinson also welcomed Sophie’s selection:

Sophie is a bright and able candidate and will be a breath of fresh air in the forthcoming by-election campaign. She has the skills and energy to be an excellent representative for the people of Inverclyde. I’ll be joining her on the campaign trail on Saturday and hope to see fellow Liberal Democrats getting out there to support Sophie too.

If you want to help Sophie’s campaign, please call Jean Hunter on 01475 704735 or Simon Hutton on 07886 626380. Donations, made payable to Inverclyde Liberal Democrats, are welcome. Please send to Sophie at 54 Kelly Street, Greenock, PA16 8TR.

Jo launched the Speaker’s Parliamentary Placements Scheme last week, along with Labour and Conservative MPs Hazel Blears and Eric Ollerenshaw.

In a bid to make Parliament more inclusive and open, the scheme hopes to attract 12 young people from disadvantaged and diverse backgrounds, who’ll be given the opportunity to complete a paid internship in Parliament. They will begin their placements after conference season this autumn.

Jo said:

I am delighted this scheme has now been launched and is open for applicants. With internships recently coming under intense scrutiny, this scheme is a positive first step toward making our politics more representative of British people.

The Speaker’s Parliamentary Placements scheme will make Parliament more open and accessible to those who have previously not thought of applying for an internship, whether due to their distance from London, lack of contacts, or financial constraints. I hope that people who are passionate about politics will consider this valuable opportunity to really see how Parliament works.

The recruitment process is now open and you can find the application form on the Social Mobility Foundation website at www.socialmobility.org.uk

Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD): Will the Deputy Prime Minister reassure my constituents that the Government will resist any siren calls to water down the Equality Act as part of the red tape challenge?

The Deputy Prime Minister: I can certainly confirm that, as far as I am concerned, there will be no move to dilute incredibly important protections to enshrine and bolster equality in this country under the guise of dealing with unnecessary or intrusive regulation.

Good.

The only voting machines that I’ve been aware of were for counting the local council elections. I mean you just don’t need voting machines for AV. Have they [No to AV] ever managed to answer that question as to why they think it would? I’ll give you an example right, in my constituency, in the last two years we’ve had two by-elections in the council. Now when you have STV, it’s STV because you have a multi-member ward. When you have a by-election therefore you count with AV because AV is basically STV but for a single-member ward. We had both those by-elections and they were counted in the exact same way, by hand, as every other election has been counted.

Find out Jo’s answers on other points, including spoilt ballot papers, the Electoral Reform Society, the BNP and why she’s campaigning for Yes to Fairer Votes at the TotalPolitics website.

Today it is Caron Lindsay, who blogs at http://carons-musings.blogspot.com.

1. What’s your formative political memory?
Watching Roots when I was nine. I was shocked to the core by the cruelty towards the slaves, the very idea that people could be bought and sold and, I think crucially, by the fact that such abuse can be stopped if good people take action.

2. When did you start blogging?
September 9th 2006.

3. Why did you start blogging?
I never wanted to just write about politics, but I thought I could help the Lib Dem cause during the hours when it would have been rude to deliver leaflets. I felt that there was a need for something which could simply explain liberal ideas to people who had no interest in politics and to be a bit of an antidote to the bile from the right wing tabloid press.

4. What five words would you use to describe your blog?
Random, liberal, eclectic (and this one has been used by Malcolm Harvey in the 2010 Total Politics Guide to Political Blogging), fair and unpredictable.

5. What five words would you use to describe your political views?
Leftie, liberal, peace loving hippy.

6. Which post have you most liked writing in the last year (and why)?
2010 was the most emotionally and politically intense year I’ve ever experienced. The potent cocktail of emotions and adrenaline during the General Election and the formation of the Coalition (and since) fuelled some posts I’m quite proud of. I can’t say I really enjoyed writing them, though.

I’m going to pick is the interview I did with Jo Swinson on the day Lib Dem Voice let me loose as guest editor. Rather than have me frantically scribble notes, my daughter had set things up so I could record the conversation. We ended up having a 20 minute chat on a huge range of topics from how the coalition was going down on the streets of East Dunbartonshire to her recent visit to Nigeria, to her work on allergies, to sport and gender sterotyping. We were both pretty relaxed and it felt like a proper, illuminating, grown up conversation which I wanted to report in pretty much that style.

I spent the rest of the night frenetically writing it up in 3 parts: one, two and three.

7. Which post have you most liked reading in the last year (and why)?
My shortlist for this had a fair few Elephant posts on it, but the one I’ve chosen is one where he describes the workings of the economic cycle. The fluffy one at his educational best.

8. What’s your favourite YouTube clip?
It has to be Dan and Dan’s Daily Mail Song. I never get tired of listening to it. A brilliant satire on the British right wing tabloid press in general.

9. Which bloggers, writers or thinkers inspire you?

There are a few people whose every word I have to read because even though I may disagree, they present their arguments in a compelling and persuasive way. They’re all very different in approach.  Lib Dem bloggers who are for me unmissable are:

• Jennie Rigg, for irreverence, originality, feminism and never holding back
• Sara Bedford, for the feisty and passionate way she pulls apart illiberal ideas
• Millennium Elephant, who is never brief, but who brilliantly explains complex ideas, particularly to do with the economy
• Lynne Featherstone, continuing to blog and speak out as she has done for years even though she’s a minister
• Cicero, even though his often prescient analysis of foreign and financial events scare the life out of me
• Mark Thompson for his interest in evidence-based policy making, particularly where drugs are concerned

In the wider blogosphere, I can’t miss:

• The Better Nation boys – they’ve done well with their thought provoking, intelligent and generally positive approach, even if they once cast me as the poster girl of the illiberal left
• Brian Taylor is the fairest and most intelligent political journalist I can think of
• The Burd is a relatively recent relevant and readable addition to the Scottish blogosphere
• Jack of Kent for explaining the intricacies of the legal system (with Lallands Peat Worrier and Love and Garbage doing the same job in Scotland)

My biggest political inspiration is Shirley Williams for the practical way she’s applied her liberal instincts in many ways through her career.

For campaigning influences, you don’t get much better than James Carville and Paul Begala who helped Bill Clinton win the White House in 92 and 96.  I’ve recently re-read their Buck up, Suck up … And Come Back When You Foul Up, which has lessons for all of us. And it shows that being a maverick is no barrier to professional success.

10. Give us a surprising fact about yourself:
I have climbed proper hills in the past – real Munros. Only three of them, but it just goes to show that I can do the outdoors, even if I don’t like it.

Co-founder of the Campaign for Body Confidence and Liberal Democrat MP Jo Swinson has given the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) details of 172 scientific studies which show that exposure to idealised media images has a negative effect on body image for adults and children.

The portfolio of evidence gives a comprehensive overview of research examining the link between airbrushed media images and people’s dissatisfaction with their own bodies.

The Campaign for Body Confidence is calling on the ASA to amend its codes of conduct for advertisers to require airbrushed images of people to be clearly labelled.

Commenting, Jo Swinson said:

“This portfolio of evidence clearly shows the negative impact that idealised images in the media are having on children and adults alike, who are bombarded with these unrealistic and altered pictures on a daily basis.

“The media has a responsibility to protect audiences from these pressures, which can lead to low self-esteem and eating disorders.

“I hope the ASA will take this evidence into serious consideration and work with the Campaign for Body Confidence to look at how its codes of conduct could be changed.”

Commenting further, Centre of Appearance Research expert Phillippa Diedrichs, said:

“We now have two decades of research that shows that viewing ultra-thin and hyper-muscular models is harmful to people’s body image.

“We also know that showing people more realistic and diverse images of beauty can promote healthy body image and appeal to consumers.

“This is an excellent opportunity for industry, researchers, politicians and the public to work together to celebrate the beauty in all shapes, sizes and appearances.”

The portfolio of academic evidence which Jo has given to the ASA can be viewed online:

Not that I’m stalking Jo or anything, but I do have a They Work for You alert for her. I saw that she had recently asked Minister for Education Tim Loughton about bullying of children with allergies and I wondered what prompted that.

As Chair of the All Party Group on Allergy, I chaired an event before the election which was wonderful because it was kids 6-18 who came along to the House of Commons and presented their experiences as young people living with allergy. They talked about things like eating out, lack of good labelling and how that can be embarrassing with their friends and how managing their social life can be difficult. Also there were some children and it was one of these things from that meeting that really shocked me because it’s something that never happened to me as a child living with an allergy, who had gone through some serious ordeals.

Basically, other kids had put the food that they’re allergic to in their pockets or bags. Worse, the kids had been held down and had the toxic food pushed towards their face. We all know that children can be cruel and all bullying is bad and needs to be addressed, but the specific issue with this is that while some schools take it seriously, other schools didn’t see it as anything more than just kids playing around. Of course actually to a child who has a severe allergy to a particular food, then threatening them with that food is more in the league of pulling a knife on somebody else but it wasn’t being treated with that level of seriousness. So if you’re a child with an allergy and if you’re scared that you’re going to have the food that could make you go into anaphylactic shock and become very ill or die forced on you, that’s going to have a serious impact on your education.

I thnk that there needs to be a recognition that that sort of attack is very serious and needs to be dealt with accordingly. I hope that by raising the issue the Minister will be aware of what can happen and that schools can share best practice rather than the response being very very patchy with some schools dealing with it well and others  not managing to grasp the gravity of the issue.

So it’s almost like it’s training for teachers as well as education for kids?

Exactly, because allergy is growing rapidly in kids – it’s one of the few medical conditions that we aren’t managing to reverse so children need to learn that some children have allergies and children with allergies need to learn how to manage their condition and how to eat safely. We are talking about a minority though because the vast majority of children with allergies get along fine in school.

In fact, a child with an allergy can be a point of interest. I remember when I was 7 going back to school after an allergy test with the skin prick tests up my arms and some of them had the biro pen saying what they are and others had weals. I remember the class crowded round and looked at my arm and we all talked about it and explained what it was all about. It can be a bit of a learning point and something children can be interested in but if there’s a bullying environment in the school then it’s something that can be used against children.

Finally, I asked Jo about her recent trip to Nigeria with VSO.

It was fascinating. VSO have a scheme to help parliamentarians understand VSO and contribute their skills. Obviously MPs can’t go away for a whole year or their constituents would quite rightly be very concerned but they have an opportunity for us to go for a short period of time and I went the week after Liberal Democrat Conference in Liverpool to Nigeria and the specific project I was helping with was to do with the Climate Change Bill that they’re trying to pass before the elections next year. It’s at quite a crucial stage. It’s gone through both houses of the parliament but if they don’t finalise it and get it on the statute book before the elections, they have to start the process again. They want to set up a Climate Change Committee which isn’t a million miles from the Climate Change Commission we set up in our Climate Change Act. I was able to discuss with them the British experience and share some campaigning techniques. The President of Nigeria, Goodluck Jonathan has a Facebook Page so we were discussing ways of encouraging young people to use social media to campaign on this issue.

Nigeria is already feeling the effects of climate change. In the north, the desert is basically spreading and that’s having an impact on agriculture and in the south, it’s just so vulnerable to any rise in sea level in an area where 38 million people live, a quarter of Nigeria’s population. If you look at a map you can see all the lagoons and lakes all round Lagos.  As a massive energy producer it has a massive ability to take action but it’s a challenge because it’s so tied into their economy. It was a fascinating trip. I held a workshop, held meetings in the Parliament and indeed with British officials to make sure they’re up to speed with the situation so they can encourage the process along.

And that is the end of the interview. I hope you enjoyed it.

Jo: It’s really exciting about this. Lynne and I had always planned to continue it after the election but we hadn’t reckoned on her being Minister for Equalities which is a great boost. We’ve had a steering group meeting and we’ve got Mumsnet, BEAT, the eating disorders charity, Girl Guiding UK, the YMCA who do all sorts of things about fitness and healthy bodies and we’ve also got people from the catwalk world, Erin O’Connor and Karen Franklin from the fashion industry who are trying to convince them to do things differently and encourage them to be thinking more innovatively about diverse notions of beauty. We also have an academic piece of research to go to the Advertising Standards Authority to keep up the challenge on them to come down harder on advertisers using extreme airbrushing or narrow ideals of beauty and we’re also having a meeting again before Christmas within Government. Lynne is wanting to hold a meeting as minister which will bring campaign within power of things that Government can do so it’s all very exciting.

We have a website, so people can sign up for a monthly newsletter. If you’re interested let us know so we can keep people informed of all the things that are going on.

Me: I noticed you’d been asking about getting more women’s sports covered on tv.

Jo; Indeed with the Commonwealth Games just finishing and seeing more sportswomen winning medals, that’s been really exciting. The problem we have though is that sport is dominated by men’s sports and by having a greater audience for women’s sports there will be more role models out there and girls will see that there’s more to your body just being like in the magazines, that your body can achieve great things by pushing it to the limit through sport and fitness in a very positive ways. Not everyone is going to go to the Commonwealth Games but if that encourages girls and women to go for a jog round the park or go swimming at the weekend, then that’s wonderful too.

Me: it strikes me that dance is another way to encourage fitness and body confidence

Jo: Exactly and I think schools need to be more canny about encouraging young people to choose the kind of physical activity they want to do whether that’s yoga or dance, or I can hardly turn round these days without seeing a Zumba class poster.  We need to keep up with the trends rather than think that because we’ve been teaching girls to play hockey for 50 years, that’s how it always has to be. I have many memories of running around on a Saturday morning on a freezing hockey pitch. It took years after that for me to embrace exercise as something I wanted to do rather than something I was forced to do.

I expect you’re going to be working this Saturday and not going to the Strictly roadshow on Saturday.

Jo:  Oh I didn’t even know there was a Strictly roadshow. I have a surgery on Saturday morning and door knocking in the afternoon. I will have to console myself with watching the programme on Saturday night.

Me: Ann Widdecombe’s Salsa was something to behold. I’m sure your’s is better. You should go and learn the Salsa that Karen Hardy has done for us to dance at the roadshows.

I’ve been getting a bee in my bonnet about gender specific marketing. In the Summer pressure forced ELC to change their website where they marketed nurses’ uniforms at girls and white coats at boys.

Jo: Boots did this as well and there was a successful campaign by pink stink against Sainsbury’s and Mumsnet are doing a lot on the sexualisation of girls and, yes, I think that this is really important and we do fall into these stereotypes of thinking that some stuff is for girls and other stuff is for boys and actually, even at the age of five, it’s amazing what young children can pick up from that. Massive retailers ought to know better and should be thinking more carefully about the messages they are sending.

I’ll divide the interview up into several smaller sections, but I’ll pretty much type it as she said it – you want to hear from her, after all, not me:

Firstly, I couldn’t imagine that she’s capable of going for more than a few days without knocking on doors, which she confirmed:

I’ve been knocking on doors every week and I’ll be doing that this weekend.

I asked what sort of feedback she was getting on the doorstep.

Well, it’s interesting because sometimes when you look at the newspapers you assume that people are still caught up in the Westminster bubble but despite coalition it’s interesting how many people are raising local issues like leisure centre or Tesco’s plans to double their store size with a horrible building so politics is local is as true as it ever was.  Of course some people have been talking about the Coalition. It depends very much on where they’re coming from – some people are concerned about it and some people are saying to me that it’s really refreshing that you have parties working together and taking the tough decisions even if they know they might not like the cuts that are coming many people know that it’s needed.

I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the number of positive comments about the Coalition and I wanted to know if she’d had the same experience:

Obviously because I’ve spoken to a lot of people so I’ve had some people not being happy with it. During my Summer tour when I went to 50 locations on my Summer Tour, spoke to hundreds of people but very few were angry – and of those who were, many were Labour voters anyway.

Was she able to persuade people of the benefits we are bringing to Government?

Definitely. I think it’s difficult to communicate scale of financial situation we’re facing. Labour are being disingenuous by suggesting that we can cut more slowly and it could all be a lot easier but the reality is that they were planning massive cuts too – they just didn’t set out where they would fall. All parties knew they’ve have to tackle the deficit – there’s a bit of argument about how far and how soon, but the difference isn’t as massive as the media write it up. Still trying to get across the scale of the problem is difficult because imagining a trillion pounds is difficult – people understand better when you say £40,000 for every household in the UK.

I asked Jo how she saw her role as new Scottish Deputy leader in the run up to the Holyrood elections.

Obviously the leadership of the Scottish party is with Tavish in Holyrood but we need to have good communication with the party in Westminster and that’s never been more important now that we’re in Government. Obviously there’s a key coordination role between the two parliamentary parties and also to make sure that the Party  members are kept  informed and understand what we’re doing and of course there’s a campaigning role as well with the Holyrood elections next year. The SNP has failed to deliver on so many things and the Labour Party aren’t exactly presenting an enticing alternative so there’s everything to play for and we have some very good messages around education, employment and getting the economy back on its feet to help people in Scotland live the life that they want to.

One of the more frivolous things I wanted to know was whether it felt weird calling Tories “honourable friend”. Jo laughed and then proved she was a lot more grown up than I am with her answer:

You have to remember that when you get elected as an MP the whole language of the House of Commons is pretty weird. Calling Lib Dems  “my honourable friend” is weird when in real life you call them Nick, or Sarah, or Lorely.  And so I suppose because it’s weird anyway to describe someone as the Honourable Member for wherever, it’s not such a big deal to say “my Honourable Friend”. And it’s quite funny because the other day a Labour Member got it wrong and referred to the Secretary of State, Vince, as a Rt Honurable Friend when he was on the other side of the House. It’s not uncommon for people on both sides of the House to say Honourable Friend when they mean someone on the other side because they are friends outside the Chamber. I always like it when that happens because I am quite friendly with MPs in other parties. There’s more camaraderie across party lines than you would pick up from watching PMQs.

Part 2 to follow.

Gordon Birtwistle – PPS to Danny Alexander
Mike Crockart – PPS to Michael Moore
Duncan Hames – PPS to Sarah Teather
Jo Swinson – PPS to Vince Cable
Jenny Willott – PPS to Chris Huhne

and in addition Norman Lamb as Chief Parliamentary and Political Adviser to Nick Clegg is also his PPS.

If you look carefully, you might just spot the tail feathers of the last flamingo, as it was startled away by popping flashbulbs. Alas, the heat of said flashbulbs also melted the ice sculptures before Jonathan could film those too, but the video’s well worth watching for the great speeches from winners and presenters alike:

Video also available on YouTube here.

You can find the full list of BOTY 2010 winners here.

Jo Swinson MP has been announced as the new Deputy Leader of the Scottish Lib Dems. Michael Moore MP, now Secretary of State for Scotland, is stepping down after seven years as Deputy Leader.

The Scottish Liberal Democrats website quotes Jo:

After just four months in opposition, Labour has gone back to the cheap tricks and opportunism of the 1980s.

In office, Labour ran up £23,000 of debt for every man, woman and child in Scotland.

Labour caused the rising unemployment that we have inherited.

Labour raised the deficit, Labour cost jobs and Labour ducks the blame.

I intend to work with Tavish, Michael and all of our colleagues to contrast Labour hypocrisy with Liberal Democrat achievements.

Michael Moore said:

It has been a great privilege to serve as Deputy Leader for the last seven years, and I am delighted to hand over now to Jo.

Jo is our second female Deputy Leader and I know she will do an outstanding job. She has the energy, determination and razor-sharp campaigning skills that we need to highlight the things that we need to highlight the things that our party is achieving for Scotland.

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Tavish Scott MSP added:

I’m delighted to have Jo as my deputy as we campaign for more jobs, reformed public services and better education.

On Saturday, join Nick Clegg, Art Malik, Martin Bell, some surprise special guests and myself as we launch our campaign for a fairer voting system.

As you know , Nick Clegg is leading the fight in Parliament to secure the United Kingdom its first ever referendum on electoral reform.

Fighting for fairer votes will be one of the top priorities for the Liberal Democrats this coming year – it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to overhaul our failed electoral system.

That’s why we’re devoting the first evening of our Party Conference in Liverpool to a Rally for Fairer Votes, in association with the Electoral Reform Society.

We’ll be putting the case for Fairer Votes for Britain – with a bit of fun, glitz and glamour along the way!

If you ‘re at Conference, come along to ACC Auditorium at 6.30pm on Saturday. A Conference photo-pass will be required for entry.

If you can’t join us in Liverpool there will be highlights posted to www.libdems.org.uk/fairervotes over the next few days.

You can also now download campaign materials and find out more about the Fairer Votes Referendum. Just visit www.libdems.org.uk/fairervotes.

We need to start the work now – convincing friends, family, colleagues and neighbours to vote yes in the referendum.

See you on Saturday,

Jo Swinson MP