Science blog posted

I have written a post for the science campaign which is linked. On one of the issues we are still taking gas out of Medium Range storage and exporting some of it.This is a really risky thing to do, but on the other hand if the weather gets warmer the UK will be OK.

Published on Tue 09 Mar 18:14. Updated on Tue 09 Mar 18:15.

Campaign for Body Confidence

Something really fantastic happened yesterday. Readers of this blog will know that Jo Swinson MP and myself have been leading a campaign to push back against the overwhelming onslaught of overly perfected images of the human form that come at us constantly from the beauty, media, fashion, diet industries. We have reached the point where we know that what once seemed relatively harmless - is damaging us. Depression, anxiety, lack of self esteem, eating disorders are on the rise - in women, young people especially - and are rising in men too. Yesterday Jo and I held a summit for all those individuals and groups who are working away in their different spheres of influence to push back against the mega-buck industry onslaught that feeds off of making us feel bad about ourselves. Last autumn, Liberal Democrat passed our policy paper for Women - which whilst it had many policies on equal pay, violence against women, etc - also had a section on body image - and it was this part of our policy paper that caught light in the media - and more importantly - resonated with real people out in the country who are in touch with this problem on a daily basis. Essentially our paper proposes the labelling of advertisements that have been digitally enhanced or airbrushed (transparency and honesty in advertising);  would require models to have health certificates demonstrating that their BMI is healthy; encourages sport and exercise in schools and a widening from the traditional sports on offer to include young people who don't feel comfortable in those particular sports; would introduce media literacy and body confidence in the PSHE lessons in schools and in the fashion colleges require students to be taught to cut for sizes other than simply a six or eight size. Our campaign has gained the backing of world-wide academics, doctors and clinical psychologists - who have provided the evidential base to make this case. We are also supported by the Royal College of Psychiatrists who are backing our call for labelling digitally altered advertisements; by BEAT, by the Girl Guides and many others. Jo had an adjournment debate on body image and Baroness Thompson had a debate in the Lords on media literacy. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) received five complaints only last year about airbrushing (clearly they don't promote complaining to them) as when we found an advertisement that had been so altered - it was Twiggy advertisig Olay eye cream - where she had been very digitally enhanced and put it on our Campaign for Real Women website - 700 complaints came in to the ASA and the advertisement was withdrawn. Obviously that is just a tiny example of how people can make things change - but the ASA doesn't seem to be that interested in labelling or taking on this challenge and will only work single ad by single ad. Hence - our summit. What we have found is that there are a lot of individuals and groups working away at trying to push back against the harm that is being done. Yesterday we drew people involved in this campaign - in all their different ways - together for a summit. Jo chaired the meeting and the speakers were myself, Caryn Franklin, TV presenter and founder of 'All Walks Beyond the Catwalk' - a campaign for diversity in the fashion industry www.allwalks.org; Susie Orbach, author of Fat is a Feminist Issue and Bodies; Big Ideas and convener of AnyBody campaign www.any-body.org; Dr Helga Dittmar, academic and author of Consumer Culture, Identity and Well-Being and The search for the 'good life' and 'body perfect and Laurie Penny - feminist blogger and freelance journalist. Also there was Linda Papadopoulos - whose independent report for the Government on the sexualisation of children was published last week. Each speaker drove home from their own field of expertise the very real issues that have driven all of us to arrive at this point - where we are basically all saying enough is enough - and fighting to push back against the conformity to the cult of the thin, the perfect and the consumer. The contributions from the floor were equally forceful covering a plethora of issues aligned to the key issues addressed in this summit. The ambition of the summit was to draw these strands together and to form a loose collective where we all continue in our own spheres to push forward the campaign for body confidence and to which we are all committed and pledged to meet at least twice a year to move forward the agenda and to report back on actions and successes. The energy, determination and sheer force of the arguments were literally buzzing - and I have no doubt that this campaign will go from strength to strength. Small steps from each of us will be how to eat this elephant - and whilst the individual steps like getting misleading adverts to have to declare by labelling the extent to which they have been digitally enhanced are relatively small - at the other end of the scale lies many of the reasons for the ills in society from the obesity epidemic to violence against women. Everyone there has signed the pledge to Campaign for Body Confidence. We will all keep in touch through this network now - and fight together and individually to further the cause.

Published on Tue 09 Mar 09:04. Updated on Tue 09 Mar 09:04.

Babbacombe Fish Restaurant Proposal

Reply to Richard Hider's invitation to attend a public meeting concerning proposals to build a fish restraurant on Babbacombe Downs:Adrian Sanders MPMr Richard HiderRef: AMS/JB/Babbacombe DownsDate: 0...

Published on Sun 07 Mar 03:20. Updated on Sun 07 Mar 03:20.

An extraordinary meeting

Just come back from an extraordinary meeting about compensation for Equitable Life policy holders who lost out due to 'maladministration' by the Financial Services Authority.

The meeting was organised by the all-party group Justice for Equitable Policyholders. We were moved at the last minute to a smaller meeting room, and by the time 40-50 MPs had crammed in it was very much standing room only.

The 'witnesses' were the Treasury minister Liam Byrne, and Sir John Chadwick, who has been asked by the Government to advise on appropriate compensation for policyholders.

One of the main complaints raised was how long it is taking to get compensation payments made to policyholders, not least given that thousands have already died without seeing justice.

We were told that Sir John would produce his final recommendations in May, and that the Treasury would respond within a fortnight. However, there could be many further stages before the first payments were made, and Liam Byrne would not commit himself to any timetable. He said that if the compensation was simply cash lump sums they could perhaps use the DWP to pay out the cash, but if the compensation was in the form of 'financial products' (eg a top-up pension?) then it would all be much more complex and they might even have to go out to tender.

On a positive note, Sir John said he did not want to have anything to do with a 'means-tested' scheme, and the minister said he was not inclined to go down that route, both for reasons of practicality and of justice. But this prompts the question as to how those who have been 'disproportionately affected' will then be defined?

Also on a positive note, both the Minister and Sir John said that they envisaged that the estates of deceased policyholders should in principle benefit from any compensation scheme.

When the Minister and Sir John left, the new Chief Executive of Equitable spoke up and expressed support for policyholders. He revealed he had repeatedly sought a meeting with the Treasury and had had no response. He implied that he thought the whole process was dragging on far too long, and pointed out that when his own industry had had to sort out pensions 'mis-selling' they had taken a lot less time to do so.

I can't remember the last time I saw an all-party meeting with dozens of MPs cramming into a room, nor such a united view that the injustice suffered by policyholders had gone unresolved for so long.

One final point. I asked about the scale of compensation. Sir John said he couldn't put a figure on it, but would come up with a formula into which the data would be put. Liam Byrne said that they would indicate publicy how much the full cost of Sir John's scheme would be. But he then said there was 'no blank cheque' and that the Treasury would cap compensation. So the sequence of events is that hundreds of thousands of policy holders lose out, some many years ago, the Government denies responsibility, the Ombudsman finds in their favour, the Government partially rejects the Ombudsman's report, the action group go to court and get the scope of the scheme widened, Sir John comes up with a scheme and then at the end of all that the Government may simply say we can't afford it, here's how much we can spare.

Doesn't feel like justice to me.

Published on Wed 24 Feb 16:44. Updated on Wed 24 Feb 16:53.

Outside "earnings" update

Following my declaration of the strawberries I must complete the record by stating that I received the following reply from the registrarThe Registrar advises that the charity event does not come into the category of employment. You might only have to register this if anyone sponsored you for more than £650 to take part in the event. I assume this was not the case but please let me know if I am

Published on Thu 09 Jul 12:45. Updated on Thu 09 Jul 12:52.

Starting with a Bang

Starting with a Bang

The long parliamentary recess has started - weeks without time being spent in the weekly grindingly boring train ride to London and back. Mind you its a hectic pace back at Southport but you can control your agenda better.

Yesterday I found a little time for light exercise the odd game of table tennis and a workout with heavy weights.
I've done the latter all my adult life and it has a slight addictive quality. If you don't do it for a while you actually feel muscle cramps only relieved by putting the old system under pressure.
Constraints of time often mean I forego all the warm ups and warm downs etc. So there I was on Tuesday doing a few front squats in excess of 300lb. I finished, replacing the barbell on the shoulder-high squat stand or so I thought. The stand was not aligned right .It tilted sideways as I released the weight and as the weight crashed to the floor the stand was pulled rapidly down by it pausing on its way to hit the stooping me on the head and catching me on the hand.
If you wanted to dramatise it , it might be compared to being hit on the head by a 20 stone man with an iron bar from a short distance. I thought I'd better take a break. We've had enough by- elections recently
When the family saw me with a lump as though a tennis ball had been buried in my scalp I was advised to pop into A&E. So clutching a plastic bag filled with ice cubes to my temple and bleeding from my finger I was run there and tested by some very nice jolly staff who established so far as we could tell that there was no skull or brain damage.At any rate I could still recall who the Prime Minister and reigning monarch was. I left a wiser man with a determination to avoid photo opportunities for a few days.

Published on Wed 30 Jul 15:07. Updated on Wed 30 Jul 15:16.