The Women's Equality Party: What's in it for me?

On 14^th January I went to a 5x15 event at Methodist Central Hall presented by the Women's Equality Party.  It was the first major event since WEP’s launch in October 2015.  Speaking at the event were Caitlin Moran, Sophie Walker in conversation with Tanya Moodie, Rosie Boycott in conversation with Jo Brand, Catherine Mayer and Sandi Toksvig.  The capacity of Methodist Central Hall is 2,300.  It was full and I am sure could have sold out twice over. 

WEP’s central premise is that equality is better for everyone.  While there must be few that disagree with that as a notion there are sadly many who are not prepared to do much if anything to achieve it.  As Catherine Mayer said at the event and later wrote in the Evening Standard politicians are happy to talk the talk but not many walk the walk (Justin Trudeau an honourable exception).  The net effect is that the patriarchy endures not through active resistance to equality but by good intentions undone by inertia.  This is bad for women, it is bad for men, but worst of all, it's bad for children.

WEP has six objectives:

-       Equal Representation

-       Equal Pay & Opportunity

-       Equal Parenting & Caregiving

-       Equal Education

-       Equal Media Treatment

-       End Violence Against Women

A few moments’ thought surely brings the irresistible conclusion that in respect of each of those objectives we have a long way to go.  There are more male MPs in Parliament now than there have EVER been female MPs.  There are 7 women in the Cabinet of 22 Ministers.  This is the highest number ever and it is not even one third.  There is still, STILL, only one female Supreme Court judge as I months ago lamented.

People do not walk around slack-jawed in amazement because this supposedly represents progress.  But progress is not inevitable and the speed of it at times would make a sloth seem Boltish.  Progress requires actions not words.  WEP is a result of action by a formidable and commendable bunch of women and its aims will not be achieved without the continuing actions, large and small, of a great many other women AND men.

Two sage pieces of advice I recently saw for men inclined to self-identify as feminist are: first, listen don’t talk and second, when you do, talk more to men than women.  Feminism like WEP is a party to which men are invited but it is not our party.  It would be churlish and wrong to decline the invitation and there is the promise of an almighty good time for all but only if men don’t try to choose the caterers, venue, dress code and music.

Of course there has been criticism.  It’ll split the vote, it’s the narcissistic vanity project of white, middle class metropolitan Guardian readers with too much time on their hands, it’s bound to fail, why women’s equality why not just equality. 

All those criticisms can be rebutted.  If mainstream parties are not acting on their declared ambitions for promoting equality then they are failing those that want equality and do not deserve their vote.   WEP’s already 40,000 or so nationwide membership suggests an appeal and a hunger that reaches far beyond the borders of Islington.  It will only fail if we let it fail and to do so would be no indictment of Sandi Toksvig and her band but of us.  The very notion of equality encapsulates equal treatment and opportunity for all but it is self-evident that in so many ways it is still women who are being held back, belittled, beaten and bruised.

I sincerely hope WEP achieves its objectives and will lend it whatever support I can because I can find no fault with any one of its objectives and because it is a movement of hope looking for concrete change in a world which in some ways is not changing at all.

If you agree you can join here: http://www.womensequality.org.uk/join

Amicus & Mark Rylance - Friends to the Friendless

The Economist recently published an article predicting the coming abolition of the death penalty in America and elucidating the factors pointing to this, by many, much looked for development.  Reading it spurred me to write up a wonderful evening I attended at Inner Temple Hall in October last year where the actor Mark Rylance read from Francis Bacon’s essays and from the last letters sent by Andrew Lee Jones at a fundraiser for Amicus.  It was an electrifying evening for all those fortunate enough to attend. 

I have previously written about the unfortunate contemporary merging of the concept of heroism with celebrity but I have no qualms about declaring my admiration for Rylance.  Primarily because I think he is one of the best actors alive in England and acting at its best is the most effective way we have of showing others truth.  In particular, Rylance is a master at embodying reflective stillness, something which many would do well to cultivate.  However my admiration for his professional endeavours is compounded by his support for Amicus, a charity which is dear to my heart because under its aegis I was able undertake an internship in a capital appeals law office in New Orleans in 2004. 

Amicus was founded in 1992 following the execution of a death row inmate, Andrew Lee Jones, in Louisiana in 1991.  Andrew Lee Jones was convicted of killing the daughter of his estranged girlfriend in 1984.  While on death row Andrew Lee Jones became a pen pal of a British woman called Jane Officer who, during their correspondence, learnt about his case which, sadly, had many of the hallmarks of injustice that blight so many capital cases: 

His trial lasted 1 day 

The height of the prosecution case was that he knew the victim 

No scientific evidence was presented at trial 

An alibi witness was beaten the police prior to the trial and withdrew his witness statement 

The jury was  all white, Andrew Lee Jones was black as was 30% of the local population 

At a clemency hearing in 1991 his trial lawyer gave evidence and apologised for not having provided a fair defence citing: 

He had been appointed by the court and had received the papers only very shortly before trial 

He had finished law school less than five years before the trial 

He had only occasional contact with Andrew Lee Jones prior to  the trial who was over medicated with anti-psychotic medication something his lawyer had not known at the time. 

Rylance wrote an insightful and compassionate letter for the programme for the performance in October which I hope I can be forgiven for setting out below.  It is far removed from the glib platitudes that often appear in such programmes.

“Reading the letters of Andrew Lee Jones to Jane Officer, I am overcome again, in tears, as I seem to be so often these days, by the cruelty and beauty of human life.  If one could experience cruelty or beauty in separate places it might be easier to cope, but they come like ballroom dancers intertwined and leave me standing in the shadows like an awkward 16 year old hoping and praying I won't be asked to dance. 

I had determined to keep my Sundays free this year and reduce my work but the honour of being asked to support Amicus could not be dismissed.  “The longest serving death row inmate has spent 37 years in a 6ft X 9ft cell.  He is still there, waiting to die.”  I read this in the Amicus programme of 2012.  He may well be innocent like the 140 other people, in 26 states, released with evidence of innocence between 1973 and 2012. 

What kind of a being are we to be able to do this to each other?  And then immediately I remember the beauty of the silent, almost angelic presence of Jane Officer, as the invisible recipient of Andrew’s letters.  All of her letters were destroyed by the guards when Andrew was executed.  Could they not bear witness to her kindness?  I don’t think I could if I was a guard on death row.  But here she is, Andrew gives witness to her presence.  Perhaps the only intimate presence he had at the end of his brief life. 

If I learnt anything playing Thomas Cromwell in Wolf Hall, I was able to envisage much more clearly that justice is not a single dramatic act, an eloquent declaration, the swing of a sword, the bang of a gavel.  It is the painstaking untying of a twisted knot with one hand while, with the other hand, you attempt to hold off someone waving a ready pair of scissors!  The interns of Amicus would all have jobs with Thomas Cromwell if he was alive today!  The beauty of their careful thoughtful work is an inspiration and a comfort.  As I said it is an honour to be here tonight.” 

I am confident that one day soon the work of Amicus will come to an end but until it does it remains a staunch and unceasing friend to the friendless and I salute Mark Rylance for lending himself to its work.

If you also think their work is important you too can help here: https://www.justgiving.com/amicus-alj/Donate/

Merry Christmas, Joyeux Noël, Buon Natale, Frohe Weihnachten - It's all the same!

Last year I spent Christmas in Berlin with my German wife at her mother’s together with my English mother, Italian step-father and French brother-in-law. At one point during dinner all four languages were being spoken around the table with only my mother able to speak them all. Fortunately all was harmony and peace without any of the myriad family tensions that can turn a merry Christmas into a merry hell. But that didn’t stop me from marvelling at my mother’s linguistic dexterity. 

When your own family is the EU in microcosm it is hard not to look anxiously at the elephant trap that the ignorant and the foolish seem so intent on dragging Britain into. The world has become a very complicated place and as its complexity grows so too does the danger from clownish demagogues like Donald Trump and Nigel Farage quick to appeal to fear and a basic belief that life is and can be binary: good or bad. 

A former general wrote recently about the fall of Sangin back into the clutches of the Taliban. The futility of British military endeavour and loss there was writ large. There are many reasons that underlay Britain’s Afghan ‘adventure’, very few of them commendable. One of them was the apparently unending desire of Britain’s politicians to assert global importance through the projection of military power. Instead British military exploits of the last decade have served only to highlight how powerless Britain has become. This mania for interfering in the affairs of far off countries belies an intense ambivalence and anxiety about engagement with our nearest neighbours. 

Throughout this period expenditure on the Foreign Office has withered while in schools the number of children studying foreign languages has plummeted. This cultural and linguistic isolation is anything but splendid. When all outside is sturm und drang of course it is tempting to bolt the door shut and pull the covers over your head but then your world, inevitably, becomes the four walls around you. As someone who is in the midst of trying to remember when possessive pronouns take the accusative or dative case I feel the appeal of saying what is mine is mine and what is yours is dein, deine or deinem. 

There are of course competing economic arguments about the benefit to Britain of European Union membership and I cannot profess a great grasp of them but the symbolic and emotional arguments do resonate with me. For as long as we treat the EU like those weird cousins we visit once a year at Christmas only to condescend to them with our big city ways we will never truly benefit from membership nor play the leading role that is required and expected of us. As with the Scottish referendum this is not, anyway, just about money. 

It is so embarrassing watching David Cameron come back from European visits claiming to have obtained some hard won ‘concession’ to further the pantomime of the EU earning his support for continued membership. This is a referendum that should not be happening and it is a question that does not need asking. What is the serious thoughtful alternative to EU membership? The answer is that there isn’t one but a little Englander’s fantasy of turning the clock back. 

Britain is a great country but only when it is inclusive and looking to be included not when it shrinks into itself like a snail into its shell. Of course being European is difficult how could it be otherwise with that much shared history and that little shared language but only simpletons think the world is a simple place.

Wonder + Existence = Life

When was the last time that you truly marvelled at something? Have that in mind while I tell you something about the beautiful Mömpelgarder Altar that can be found in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, one of the world’s greatest treasure-houses. It is a three part creation dating from 1540, containing the most panels of any altarpiece in the world it was intended to be a pictorial guide to the most important parts of Christian scripture. Most significantly the writing is in German not Latin so that the words and not just the pictures could be understood by anyone who could read. 

Martin Luther would have been horrified to learn that what he instigated, namely making scripture intelligible to the masses, set in train a very slow rise in secularism. Much of religion’s power lies in its mystery. This is something the Orthodox churches have maintained by having their priests officiate from behind an iconostasis so that the priest is completely hidden from the congregation. Once you know and understand what the priest is reading from the big book you start to question and challenge. If the priest gives an unconvincing answer to your queries your faith is shaken and eventually you form the view that maybe religion doesn’t have all, or even any, answers. 

The Enlightenment in the 18th century took a huge intellectual broom to the cobwebs of unquestioned religious belief leaving us with an inheritance of, largely healthy, scepticism. Events like the Hajj or the Kumbh Mela or indeed the Sistine Chapel are still capable of inspiring wonder but perhaps more by virtue of the extraordinary spectacle of countless humans engaged in the same endeavour in the same place at the same time or as an example of the zenith of man’s artistic capacity.

Richard Dawkins is in many respects the 21st century’s secular answer to Martin Luther. Someone intent on promulgating to the masses as accessibly as possible the rational supremacy of atheism over the superstition ridden mumbo jumbo of religion and cult. However Dawkins’ naked contempt for the faithful reveals a remarkable blind spot in his understanding and appreciation of human nature. Man longs for wonder and a sense of the numinous. Religion has since the beginning codified, structured and mediated this longing. But despite this longing organised religion has, certainly in Britain at least, increasingly losing its grip on the public’s imagination, Dawkins or not. 

But it would be a terrible mistake to determine that because we do not go to church that we have lost our capacity, still more our need, for wonder. The modern world with its screens and its flashy distractions very often obscures rather than reveals what is wonderful about existence. One of the real blessings that children confer is that they can reinvigorate our capacity for wonder. The wide eyes of a baby remind us of a time in our lives when every sight and sound was new and surprising. 

What we feel when we wonder is a sense that we are not the centre of the universe and that there are things that we do not understand but that this can be a source of joy not a reason to fear. Think of the pleasure inherent in a good magic trick, that simple pleasure is a momentary transportation back to the wonder of childhood. When we wonder we are taken outside of ourselves and this is a necessary to antidote to harmful introspection. 

That money does not buy happiness is one of the most familiar truisms of all but it is also the case that there is no wonder in a £50 note. Taking time for wonder costs nothing and paying attention to the wonderful requires no money. We don’t know it all but what a terrible world it would be if we did.

Delicate Flowers & Reasons to Live: Why IS will not be defeated by bomb & bullet.

When charismatic churches are on the look out for new recruits they energetically love bomb them into submission.  This practice involves the congregation enhancing the newcomer’s sense of self-worth making them feel better about themselves thus drawing them inexorably into the circle.  In a much less deliberate way football clubs engender among their supporters a sense of belonging but the analogy is in some respects a weak one.  Football clubs promise no more than the shared joy and sorrow of wins and losses.  They are bigger than the self but not universally bigger.  It is in this respect that there is unbridgeable divide between religious and secular communion.

Religiously motivated terrorism is the opposite of love bombing, it is, literally, hate bombing.  When gunmen rampage through Paris or Beirut or Sousse indiscriminately slaughtering the young for the sin of simply enjoying company, music and sport they send a simple message: the power of our belief and superiority is vindicated by your destruction.  Affirming power through life is undramatic often uncelebrated and, at its essence, defined by selflessness.  Declaring power through death, by contrast, is easy, spectacular and the most selfish act man is capable of.

We are better than the murderously misguided young men who drenched Paris in blood days ago but that is only because we make a choice and it is a choice that has to be made repeatedly.  Do we exhibit the supremacy of civilisation over barbarism by avenging every dead Parisian tenfold or even hundredfold?  Are those for whom IS holds a dark allure or the promise of something more than the dismal reality of their existence deterred or emboldened by retaliation?  Are the escalation of air strikes actually prompted by any strategy at all or are they simply a show of strength for voters and the media?

Nobody would dispute that the first responsibility of a government is security.   Only a fool would agitate against any action a government took that demonstrably increased security but as citizens we are entitled to an explanation of those actions.  Furthermore when those actions impinge upon our liberties or, much more seriously, the lives of others the government should be prepared to submit itself to the most searching scrutiny.

Dropping bombs is easy and it is dramatic: a visible action undertaken far away.  Determining why young people could countenance let alone act upon a desire to abandon families, friends, schools and jobs in a stable functioning democracy to join a murderous movement of misery hellbent on returning the world to the Middle Ages is far harder and is not the stuff of headlines.  Yet killing the allure of IS will surely not be achieved by the sword but by sowing more fertile seeds in those young minds.

Meanwhile what are we the private citizens to do?  The most useful thing we can do is prevail upon our governments not to shed blood like a butcher in anger but only, when absolutely necessary, like a surgeon cutting out a tumour.  We need also to realise that the merits of civilisation can not be detonated in a display of shock and awe.   Instead civilisation is a delicate flower that has taken centuries to take root and flourish and it must never be forgotten that some of its earliest roots spring from the very part of the world that vexes us now.  If we focus our energies and hearts on propagating civilisation then we will not succumb to the terrorists’ provocation.  What young man would choose death if his life was really worth living?

Games, Trickery & Getting Off - Sensible & Silly Criticisms

I don’t know if you and your colleagues have ever been accused of being weird, useless and conniving in your professional endeavours.  If you have you will know that it can be at once both a wounding and provoking experience.

On 4th November 2015 the BBC website published an article entitled: Crown courts in England and Wales ‘chaotic and archaic’.  This summarised a report published by the Criminal Justice Alliance.

I will set out the charges below:

The Crown court system is ‘structured mayhem’

Many victims and witnesses felt frustrated that they had ‘little voice within the courtroom’

Wigs and gowns created a sense of ‘other-wordliness’

Language and rules were ‘elaborate, ritualised and – in many respects – archaic’

Delays caused ‘frustration, anxiety and inconvenience’

Jenny, a fraud trial defendant, said ‘There’s just bundles of paper, box files overflowing under desks.  And it makes you think: well if there’s all this unorganised stuff everywhere, how organised are people really? That’s important paperwork – why is it just being thrown around?’

Others said the system was about ‘trickery’, ‘getting off’ and proceedings were a ‘big game’

Julia, a witness, said ‘It’s just very frightening, very daunting when you walk in and you see all the chairs and the benches and everything set out and then you see all these people with their wigs on and the gowns.  It’s just very, very frightening.’

Ron, a witness, said ‘Lawyers should remember: it’s not a game.  They’re playing with people’s emotions and people’s lives.’

Recommendations made include:

- A review of wigs, gowns and other ‘other-worldly’ court formalities by the Lord Chief Justice and court services

- Greater emphasis on lawyers and judges to use ‘plain English’ and explain technical terms to defendants, witnesses and victims

- The appointment of an officer in the court administrative office responsible for monitoring delays and communicating with court users

- Using the criminal dock only when necessary for safety reasons and instead seating defendants with their lawyers as the ‘norm’

This is in many respects a very frustrating report because some of its observations are acute and helpful and chime with the experience of professionals.  Chronic underfunding of the Criminal Justice System is causing delay and does hamper communication with victims and witnesses.  If you have been a victim of or witness to crime you should expect to know when you will  be giving evidence and not told it could be on any day in a two week window at the end of which you are told to make yourself available for another window in 6 to 8 months’ time.  This is an unacceptable way of treating often vulnerable and traumatised people and nothing could be more calculated to squander goodwill and respect for the CJS.  There should already be people in court offices capable of communicating dates and developments to court users.

Abolition of the dock is an interesting and sensible proposal and it is one that wins favour with many lawyers.  The costs of seating defendants in docks has not been calculated but it is likely to be astronomical.  When a defendant is on bail no jailer would be required in court if the defendant sat next to his or her lawyer.  Furthermore communication between lawyers and their clients is hardly facilitated by hurried mutterings through a glass partition.

I believe that it can’t be right that defendants should be required to sit in a glass box as spectators at their own trial.  In the ‘old’ 19th century courts at the Old Bailey the defendant sits on a dais surrounded by fancy carved finials slap bang in the middle of the court.  There is a very interesting article to be written about courtroom architecture and its symbolism.  In those same courts barristers face the jury box emphasising the historic importance of the advocate and eye contact with jurors.  Now the Bar and the judge face each other with the judge, as ever was, omnisciently looking down on all.  The sooner defendants sit with their lawyers the better.

This however is where the sensible and well founded suggestions and recommendations begin to peter out.  Wigs and gowns.  Of course they look extraordinary.  Of course nobody in their right mind would propose them now.  But are they really what alienates court users?  The main reason we still wear them is tradition which is the main reason anything happens the way it does in this country.  Where tradition is harmful, female genital mutilation being an extreme example, it should be ended immediately and without discussion.  Where however tradition is in reality harmless then what is the purpose of doing away with it?

This complaint is really about formality.  It is possible to envisage a trial process where all parties sit round a  circular table wearing tracksuits and in which an entrant into the room could not distinguish judge from barrister, from witness, from juror, from usher, from defendant.  Would that in reality reduce the anxiety of witnesses and defendants or is their anxiety a natural reaction to matters personal to them being ventilated in an open forum with potentially serious life changing consequences?  If it is the latter then altering appearance and the courtroom architecture will reduce their anxiety not at all.

Nobody complains that police officers wear uniforms when investigating criminal offences and wigs and gowns are just that: a uniform.  As a symbol of our profession they are known around the world and unusual though they may look it can hardly be said that they are intrinsically intimidating.

As to the complaint of ‘other-worldliness’ the courtroom is a different place.  But it is a different place in the way that an operating theatre is a different place.  The people within it are still just people doing their job.  Advocates and judges that use long words are bad at their job and bad for the Criminal Justice System.  Good advocates and judges know this.  If witnesses and juries can’t understand what you’re saying then you are not persuading and if you are not persuading you are failing.  I learnt this lesson as a pupil when I asked a teacher witness who made a note about a classroom assault whether it was contemporaneous.  The witness replied: What does contempt your anus mean?  And every barrister knows that eliciting the answer: What’s a demeanour? When asking what someone’s demeanour was like is the best lesson in using words of one syllable.

I will acknowledge that some aspects of court procedure are archaic and needlessly so.  A theologian’s library of holy books on the usher’s desk has always struck me as a very bizarre sight and it is unclear to me why judges can’t simply ask witnesses if they promise to tell the truth with a warning that imprisonment a possible consequence of failing to do so.  The usher’s oath on jury retirement does seem particularly outmoded: I swear by Almighty God that I will keep this jury in some private and convenient place.  I will not suffer anyone to speak to them nor will I speak to them myself concerning the trial this day unless it be to ask them if they are agreed on their verdict.

Complaints about tidiness of paperwork seem especially trivial and pointless.  Data protection is an extremely important aspect of a barrister’s professional obligations with swingeing fines imposed by the Information Commissioners, as exemplified by this £200,000 penalty imposed on the CPS for loss of laptops, however that can’t legitimise a moan about how beautifully counsel’s bundles are maintained during the course of a trial.  There is no evidence at all that a tidy desk = a tidy mind and some of the most brilliant people of all operate in organised chaos.  I hasten to add this is not a plea in mitigation…

But the complaint that really rankles is the one that alleges trickery, games and a focus on getting people off.  If you are instructed to defend in criminal proceedings it is axiomatic that you must do so to the best of your skill and ability.  Game playing and trickery is not merely unprofessional and subject to disciplinary sanction it could, in some circumstances, be illegal.  The whole point of an adversarial court based process is that evidence is tested.  Being tested in any forum is unlikely to be a pleasant experience but when a defendant’s liberty and reputation is at stake a degree of rigour about the process is essential.

As I have said this report contains some sensible proposals but it is sad that its legitimacy is self-sabotaged by unparticularised allegations about sharp practice and professional impropriety.  Barristers are trained to focus on detail and not rely on sweeping and unfounded generalisations.  It would help if the Criminal Justice Alliance had followed suit.

Fast Times: Slow Living

Anyone who has kept an eye on Jeremy Corbyn’s first few weeks in office can’t fail to have noticed that he has attracted some criticism and censure.  It seems for some that he can do no right with his allegedly questionable friendships, his alleged romantic history, his alleged economic recklessness and, of course, his alleged lack of support for the feminist cause demonstrated by his top shadow appointments.

Indeed in the early morning of his first full day in office he was pursued relentlessly by a Sky News camera crew taking him to task on just that last point.  Many commentators were quick to upbraid his supposed rudeness and aloofness in stonewalling the camera crew.  The message appeared to be that this is 2015 and the Leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition should be ready, willing and able at any moment to contend with a TV presenter’s questions.

It is reported that Mr Corbyn has historically been a cyclist and has never driven and that he intended to eschew an official car.  Such doorstepping may have caused him to question his resolve on that point.  Ensconced in a Merc no politician can be criticised for failing to answer questions, they probably can’t even hear them and, anyway, a car is a private place.

It remains to be seen whether Mr Corbyn’s stated desire to do politics differently will endure and succeed but I strongly feel that his silence was not rudeness but simply an assertion that while walking in the street he was under no obligation or duty to anyone to answer questions.

A 24 hour ‘always on’ rolling news media ensures that there is an insatiable appetite for stories and if they are slow to emerge then the media will inflate and in extremis create those stories.  It is not fair or right to expect politicians to speak to the media at any moment of the day or night except perhaps about matters relating to national security.  It is not fair on them and it is not fair on us.

I want politicians to have the time to think; I want their responses to be considered and informed.  I want them to have a private life that is separate to their public life.  Many of us work on our commutes and indeed there was a recent European Court of Justice ruling that in certain circumstances commuting IS work.  However there is a huge difference between choosing to work (discreetly) on a brief on the train and having to do so.  Even the most industrious barrister would not attempt to work whilst walking to court.

In that regard I actually have a great deal of sympathy for Mr Corbyn and just as the 24/7 culture damages politicians and their effectiveness so it does us.  We need to work to live not live to work even though all the trends of modernity militate against us achieving that.  A wonderful movement developed in Piedmont in Northern Italy in the mid-80s, Slow Food International, agitates languorously against the joylessness and lack of fulfillment fast food brings.

We are so much more than our jobs, a truth that men and barristers in particular often struggle to grasp, but when we do not develop ourselves away from work we and those around us suffer as, eventually, does our work.  Mr Corbyn, like all politicians, needs and deserves time to be a person not just a politician.

We could all do with living slower lives making more space and time for experiences outside the workplace.  This about sums it up: