Guest blog: Alison McGovern's Labour party conference diary, day 2
I've just left the Labour Women's summit at the grand Manchester Town Hall. This massive fringe event brought together over 700 Labour women from everywhere in Britain.
As you might expect, the mood was demanding. Lots of the speakers from the floor were concerned about Government cuts: women are disproportionately in roles like teaching assistants and police community support office, and are facing risk of redundancy and uncertainty. Add to this the analysis from the House of Commons Library that Yvette Cooper told us about, showing that of ã8bn of cuts in Osborne's budget, ã6bn will be paid by women. Not fair, George.
So no surprise that the women present were crying out for leadership on these issues. I'm chairing another fringe meeting later with my neighbour Angela Eagle MP speaking on pensions, and I expect it will be the same story there.
As someone selected on an all women shortlist, I take my role in supporting other women through politics pretty seriously, and making sure the voice of all my constituents is heard, not just those who have the free time to turn up to meetings.
At the finale, we did allow one man to speak: our new leader Ed Miliband. He was brilliant: humble, serious, but inspiring. Ed visited Wirral South during the leadership campaign and he charmed the Labourmembers and Wirral people he met. With Ed now at the helm, it feels like we are about to take the fight for our future, and growth in our economy, to the next level. Can't wait for his big speech tomorrow.
Alison McGovern is MP for Wirral South and parliamentary private secretary to Gordon Brown, she blogs HERE.
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David Bartlett
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Can't get past "comment held for approval by the blog holder". David doesn't screen comments to his blog.
Presumably there's some kind of filter?? With trigger words?