Maria Eagle, the Labour MP for Garston and Halewood, declared that she was going to stand for the Shadow Cabinet. [...]]]> In July, at the end of our ‘Where are the women’ discussion we asked each one of our panel members what one thing she was going to do to promote women in leadership.

Maria Eagle, the Labour MP for Garston and Halewood, declared that she was going to stand for the Shadow Cabinet. (Under Labour Party rules, the Labour MPs elect colleagues to the Shadow Cabinet, although the position they are given is decided by the Leader.)

So we were absolutely delighted to see that Maria Eagle MP, along with 7 other women, was elected to the Shadow Cabinet last week where she is now serving as Shadow Secretary of State for Transport.

Here at Progressive Women, we committed to do two things – one to organise an event where women (and progressive men) can develop their leadership skills. And we did – on November 6th we’re holding a day of leadership training, have you bought your ticket yet?

Two, to continue to encourage you all to get involved and to use your talents, skills, and experiences to be the next generation leaders. We asked every one who was at the event to think of one thing that they could do to promote women in leadership. What did you think of doing? Have you done it yet? And if not what better time than now to do one thing to promote women in leadership.

Don’t Forget: Join other aspiring future leaders at Progressive Women’s upcoming event Inspiring Leaders on Saturday 6th November. For more details see here.

It’s easy to talk about cuts in the abstract – and to presume that there are large-scale painless efficiencies across the public sector that will allow us to reduce our deficit with ease. But the reality is [...]]]> This week is TUC week. Nicola Smith, Senior Policy Officer at the TUC writes this week’s guest blog.

It’s easy to talk about cuts in the abstract – and to presume that there are large-scale painless efficiencies across the public sector that will allow us to reduce our deficit with ease. But the reality is that cuts of the scale that the Government are proposing cannot be made without significantly increasing inequality and taking substantial economic risks.

Women will feel the impact of these cuts. Earlier this year TUC research showed that women’s jobs were on the line in the public sector. Our analysis suggests that around 40 per cent of women in work in the UK are employed in public sector jobs – and that areas where there are particularly high levels of female public sector employment are also those where male unemployment rates rose the most during the recession. With the Office for Budget Responsibility forecasting that over 600,000 public sector jobs will be lost by 2015, it is clear that working women will feel the impact. And with 38p of every pound of state expenditure going directly to the private sector, it won’t only be state employees who feel the jobs impacts of the cuts.

But job cuts are only part of the story – when posts are lost across the public sector, so are services. Already, before the Spending Review has even reported, around £13 billion of cuts have been announced that directly cut services from children and families. These include cuts in free school meals, in Tax Credit payments for families with new babies, in careers services for young people who are not in education or employment and in the Future Jobs Fund for those facing the prospect of long-term worklessness.

As new TUC research shows, public spending is a driver of redistribution. Households in the poorest decile, whose average annual income is £6,500, receive transfers and services from the state equivalent to 328% of their original household income. In contrast, households in the richest decile, whose average annual income is £76,200, receive transfers and services equivalent to 19% of their original incomes. Spending on public services and social security makes a substantial contribution to the reduction of inequality in society. As services are cut it is the poorest, who are more likely to be women (and specifically women with children), who will feel the inevitable impacts.

The TUC believe that there is an alternative, based on reducing the deficit over a more sensible time scale, with much more flexibility and a far greater emphasis on closing the fiscal gap with fairer taxes and the proceeds of growth. We also believe that this change of tack is an economic as well as a social imperative. Taking large amounts of money out of the economy when the recovery remains extremely vulnerable risks increased unemployment (and consequently social security payments), slower growth, reduced tax revenues and may ultimately cause further damage to the public finances. In Ireland, which embarked on deep austerity measures a year and a half ago, public services have been slashed but the economy remains sluggish and the country’s credit rating has been downgraded.

Spending cuts are not painless and we urge the Government to recognise the economic and social consequences that steep cuts now will have. Until they do, we will actively campaign against the cuts –all progressive women should do the same.

Want to be inspired by strong women leaders? Want to develop your leadership skills? See here for more information on our Inspiring Leaders event

On Monday Trinidad and Tobago elected their very first female Prime Minister. Kamla Persad-Bissessar was [...]]]> As we’ve already discussed here the past few weeks have seen a worrying roll back of women in senior positions in Westminster. So we’re delighted that this week has seen two strong women stand up for what they believe in:

On Monday Trinidad and Tobago elected their very first female Prime Minister. Kamla Persad-Bissessar was elected to lead a coalition government, ousting the long serving Prime Minister Patrick Manning. We don’t know much about Trinidadian politics and would be interested to know more about Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s policies and priorities, especially how they will impact on the rights of women. The OECD has an overview of the country’s record up till now here.

Closer to home, former MP, Oona King has stepped forward as the first person to launch her bid to become Labour’s candidate for London Mayor. Other candidates are likely to include former Mayor, Ken Livingston and possibly current MP David Lammy. The Labour party will pick its candidate for Mayor at the same time as they pick their new leader, and we’ll find out who will be challenging Boris Johnson in 2012 when the results are announced in September.

We send both women our very best wishes.

Don’t forget, we’ve still got time to get more great women to run for the Labour leadership. And if you get any interesting responses, do let us know in the comments below or by emailing us.

Diane Abbott’s candidacy just goes to confirm what we said yesterday – politics is no longer men only. There is space [...]]]> We were absolutely delighted this morning to hear that Diane Abbott MP, a strong, talented Labour woman, has entered the race to become Labour leader. We wish her the very best of luck!

Diane Abbott’s candidacy just goes to confirm what we said yesterday – politics is no longer men only. There is space for a woman in this race but we want to see women in this race!

One woman is a great start but that doesn’t mean that more women can’t or shouldn’t stand. In fact quite the reverse. We want to see as many strong talented, female, politicians as possible join this race.

Thank you so much to everyone who has written or emailed Labour women so far. We’ve had an amazing response in the last 24hours and we’re not there yet. If we want to see more women join the race we need to let them know, we need to ask.

Click here for a template email. Contact details for Labour Women are here and a word version of the template letter is here.