That’s a rather disingenuous interpretation.  Certainly, Janet Street-Porter (The Mail on Sunday) advocated that view.  But she also seemed to hold rather contradictory views; advocating “guerrilla tactics” at the start of the debate and legally-binding quotas for public appointments and elections at the end of the debate.

The “you deserve the coverage you get” attitude was also firmly held by Anne McElvoy (The Economist), who pointed out that politics is a business for peacocks.  Journalists look for things to write about, be it a woman’s cleavage or the Prime Minister’s bald spot.  Don’t wear ridiculous outfits, says Janet Street-Porter, referring to Caroline Flint’s various fashion choices.  The difficulty with that argument is that different people have different ideas about what a “ridiculous outfit”.

The problem, of course, is that the clothes and the shoes and the “how does it feel to be a woman and an MP” questions overwhelm the rest of it.  Emma Reynolds recounts occasions when she expected to talk about a particular policy and all the press wanted to know was what how difficult it was to get elected.  Male politicians appear in GQ and nobody blinks: Louise Mensch does it and it’s discussed as a feminist issue.  And yes, there is a disproportionate amount of coverage of Theresa May’s shoes.

If the panellists representing the media were asserting how the media is tough on everyone, the MPs asked how the lack of coverage of women and the lack of women in politics fed into one another.  On the Today Programme that morning Louise Mensch counted 22 men and four women, while Newsnight is ubiquitous in its maleness.  She wasn’t arguing for absolute parity, merely for more women’s voices to be heard.  The press is excluding women’s views when they could be benefiting from them.

Women have a different relationship with the media.  Sophy Ridge (Sky News) said that female MPs don’t push themselves forward, don’t phone up every week asking to be on TV (an unnamed male MP apparently does do this) and don’t want to speak on subjects they are less familiar with.  Sadly, this may be entirely logical behaviour, given the media’s tendency to either focus on women’s shoes or to deride them as airheads, but it provides no escape from the vicious cycle.  As Angie Bray said, those politicians who get to the top, like Theresa May, are firstly tough and secondly learn how to deal with the media.  No one in politics can decide to have nothing to do with the media.

Speaking from the audience, former MP Gillian (now Baroness) Shephard agreed that a tough skin was important.  It’s hardly fair to put every portrayal of women in the media down to the “if you wear those shoes then that’s all we’ll write about” attitude.  Women on television get held to a higher standard of appearance than their male counterparts, and women on the internet receive far more criticism.

Do female politicians all agree with each other on how to address this?  Of course not: they’re from different political parties.  Women don’t agree with each other simply because they’re women.  We want the brightest and the best women in Parliament, and we don’t want them turned off politics because of the portrayal of female politicians.  The under-representation of women in politics and the lack of coverage of women’s views in the press are intimately related.

And the best quote of the night?  As Janet Street-Porter loudly asserted that quotas were the only way to get more women into Parliament and at least half the panel and most of the audience raised their voices against her, someone at the back of the room shouted out: “ladders not quotas!”  That’s the debate the APPG should have next.

“Coalition 2.0 is not going to happen,” admitted a senior cabinet source. “We have realised that governing is more than just passing legislation. We really need to focus on ensuring they [the laws] work so we can go to voters with proof that we have made a difference.”

While I understand that undertaking such an exercise is tough – especially politically –  the strategic benefits of agreeing Coalition 2.0 would outweigh the tactical pain. The world has changed a lot since May 2010.  New energy needs to be given to the growth agenda. There are some very strong ideas emerging, such as the way forward presented by Nick Boles at the TRG Macmillan lecture. (Fiona will blog more on this later). Leaving aside the observation that governing is harder than had been imagined, Coalition 2.0 does not have to be about producing rafts of new legislation.  It is about building on what has already happened and ensuring that there is a consistent and quality way forward.

When the Coalition was formed David Cameron and Nick Clegg said that they were putting aside party politics for the good of the nation. The Government needs to reflect and assess before charting the best way forward. To ignore such an exercise because it is politically tough today risks creating a stagnant future.

The magnitude of the challenges ahead requires us to ask searching questions about our rights, responsibilities and priorities. We need not only to go “back to basics”, but to re-examine what those “basics” are. And yet much of our recent political debate has failed to probe our values far enough. On heath for example, the NHS reforms prompt strong feelings, but mostly about the organisation of service delivery and the model most effective at delivering outcomes which are already agreed upon. Uncomfortable though they are, we need to confront more fundamental questions about the outcomes themselves if we’re to be able to make the tough choices ahead.

In the past week, the debate on bonuses and benefits asked us to reflect, closely examining values such as our understanding of “fairness”. Some of what we’ve seen has been an unnerving reminder of the need for reform. When did we become a society that thought it was fair for families on benefits to receive more money than the average working family? And at what point did failed business leaders become entitled to see their flawed decision-making rewarded with huge pay-offs?

From the highest to the lowest, we need to recalibrate our understanding of what the world owes us and what we owe to each other. Countless millions across the emerging economies have no such sense of entitlement, just the energy and endeavour to improve their circumstances. We will need to encourage and reward these values better if our economy is to recover and the prospects of the next generation are to improve.

The Tax Payers Alliance, who generally don’t like taxes, have conducted a study that shows the average family pays around £656,000 in tax over its life time. Is this a price worth paying to live in a civilised and functioning society? It is possible that if we didn’t fund a national health service through taxation I would have spend a lot more on private health, thus be poorer. Health is not a purely individual matter either. It is in my interest that that the person standing next to me at the bus stop – and the bus driver – is in good health and can access health care.

Democracies search for the system that provides the best value for all of us. This is not easy, and societies judge the balance differently. French people pay more taxes than Americans, but they do not have to pay private health care or  the same exorbitantly high tuition fees. Who is better off? Which society is better? Your answer will depend on perspective and circumstances.

Capitalism is the best system for people to freely exist in, but within this there are many strands of thought on how capitalism can best operate. Money is the most obvious means in which we exchange and measure wealth, not the main reason for why we live in the world that we do. If we shout about money rather than talking about what constitutes the best system then nothing will change.

Raising the personal allowance is not a new idea. Lords Saatchi and Blackwell have campaigned for many years for the threshold to be £10,000. You might say Nick agrees with Maurice and Norman. But there are reasons not to agree that shouldn’t be overlooked.

Paying income tax is a stake in the income tax system. If you don’t pay tax you have little or no interest in the tax rate (paid by others). Nigel Lawson found this in practice. According to his (utterly brilliant) autobiography “The View From No11″ he started off believing that he needed to take people out of tax. But he found when he did that they then wanted to know what they’d get next. Frustratingly for him, “But you’ve been taken out of tax” wasn’t an adequate reply. There was a danger that not only would some people no longer contribute tax to the state, they would actively want more spending from the state.

So Lawson started cutting tax rates. Because the rates became ludicrous numbers (31% or 29% or something like that) it was clear that they would be cut in a process to a more easily calculated figure (25% or 20%). The nation could buy into the target and process and have a stake in it. The psychology worked.

Gordon Brown Mark 1 drew this lesson when he introduced the 10p rate. It made work pay within a stakeholder society. But Gordon Brown Mark 2 forgot all that and was quite taken aback by the venom with which the abolition of the 10p rate was opposed. It’s like those low-effort cake mixes. Ad men found that people didn’t want to buy complete ready-mixes. It didn’t feel like cooking; you hadn’t done anything. “Just add an egg” was born.

The 10p rate, I think, was ‘just add an egg’. It’s low effort, not no effort. It’s a small but satisfying contribution you feel better for making. You get involved in a Big Society, if you will. Need a tax goal No10? Bring back 10p!

There are some examples of open data successes in the UK. The crowd sourcing of possible cuts was useful in identifying the £1million – £10million issues that departments may have missed. A good example of this was the public pointing out that the £8million per year was being spent on sending out National Insurance cards to 16 year olds, even though no-one has ever needed this piece of plastic. The Red Tape Challenge has so far identified 6,000 regulations that need to be alerted or removed.

Open data my not be the democratic panacea it at first seems. There is a danger that crowdsourcing will only be accessible to those who have the ability to utilise it. It is estimated that in the UK 8.4million people have never been online – half of these have a disability and half are living in social housing. This ‘middle-class parent’ syndrome is a fact of life. Where a decision will lead to benefit or hurt then people will use all their abilities to try and influence the outcome. This is something the convener of any consultation needs to be aware of when analysing feedback.

The debate contained some underlying frustration that those outside the room were not embracing open dataness. But of course we were a self-selecting crowd of geeks who had decide to forego the comforts of our home to stand in a basement talking tech and policy, thus found it hard to understand why anyone would choose to watch Eastenders. The way to get people involved is to make involvement fun, make involvement easy and make the benefits obvious, but unfortunately the formation of legislation can’t always tick these boxes. To quote Otto von Bismarck “Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made.” Moaning about politicians may be a national pastime but that does not mean the masses want to ‘do’ politics.

There is a big difference in crowdsourcing data and crowdsourcing views. Allowing the public to collect/peer review information is different from trying to achieve consensus of opinion. Frustratingly for those who wish that life always worked in a linear way there are many important grey areas where data and opinions collide. This is especially true in politics and policy formation. Transparency can help people to judge where empirical evidence ends and ideological persuasions begin, but solving the big questions in life will never be left to neutral open data.

Policy Innovation are holding four more events in their ‘Transition Layer’ season.

Firstly, that a sensible discussion about the size and scope of the state must start from a clear understanding of what it does and how much we spend on it. And secondly, that only when people understand what things cost can they decide whether they are an essential or a nice to have.

It shouldn’t be difficult to find a list of what the government spends our money on. But it REALLY is. The first government site on google when you search for “uk government spending breakdown” is number 6 in the results. The top five are all a private undertaking. And the one from the government is from the ONS which is incredibly unintuitive and you have to know the technical jargon for what you’re looking for.

So here is another little idea. How about a really simple site from the Treasury, using the data which is already supposed to be published, detailing what each department spends, on what. Later, we could perhaps add why they spend it (which would take us into another of our ideas, a regular review of all spending with a view to reducing it by a targeted amount).

I recently heard some fascinating figures on aid spending (and this is very generalised, but makes my point). Apparently, most people think that we spend around 20 per cent of our total government expenditure on aid and development. It is not even projected to reach the 0.7 per cent agreed by the UN decades ago until 2013. Similarly, Peter Kellner of YouGov has written (using the BBC licence fee as an example) a great piece about placing figures in context.

As Stewart Pearson and Louise Mensch are both fond of saying, knowledge is indeed porridge.

I do think we as a society have an obligation to help those who can’t help themselves. But I do not see why people should have to pay for those who won’t help themselves to live in nicer houses, have holidays and other things that those who work can’t afford, and – crucially – not have the worry that most working people do about the security of their jobs, and what they can give their children.

The changes proposed by the Government will not affect the disabled, war widows/widowers or households with a worker. I don’t think that is unreasonable and in fact I question whether they go far enough.

As, incidentally, do most people.  A YouGov poll this weekend shows that 36 per cent of people think that the cap should be under £20,000 a year.

If we’re agreed that the aim of this cap should be to make work more attractive than not working, has it really been thought through in full? Is there a better way to ensure that those who work and do the right thing gain, and those who won’t… don’t?

As Mary-Ann Sieghart wrote in the Independent this morning, it’s that fabled squeezed middle who feel most strongly about this. It is they whose wages have fallen 4 per cent, and who face rising inflation.  In one of his many attempts to be coherent last year, Ed Miliband said that Labour couldn’t be seen as the “party of those ripping off society any more”. Given that he has decided that his Lords will vote against the Government tonight, this is unlikely. But the thing that might really cut through is something that I don’t think the Coalition has the guts to do…

He should propose a cap at the level of the minimum wage. Which would be raised to make sure it is actually liveable on, as I have argued previously (building on Ed Miliband’s own very Conservative idea of tax breaks for companies that pay living wages) and paid for by reducing the level of tax that companies pay – because it is pointless simply recycling money.

I don’t have all the answers, and I don’t know if any of the above is practical. But the aim must – surely – be to radically reduce complexity, increase the disposable income and incentives for people in work, and properly encourage people into work.

Many are focusing on the appealing claim that lighter afternoons would make roads safer, reduce crime, and boost business and tourism income by some billions. Many others are highlighting the objections of the Scottish people who would be plunged into relative darkness. Few have challenged the foundation of the supposed scientific claims of the Bill.

Dr Malcolm von Schantz, Senior Lecturer in Physiology and Biochemistry at theUniversity ofSurrey has expressed his concern: “The Government’s decision to back a bid for theUK to join the Central European time zone is based on a fallacy.

“Under GMT we change our time to make optimum use of daylight hours. The proposed system would mean we wake up in the dark, but it would look like we have an extra hour in the evenings. This is not a fair trade, despite appearances.

“Our body clock, which controls a host of crucial internal processes, is only sensitive to light in the morning. Preliminary data fromAmericasuggests that if the Government proposal was to go ahead, then this could create sleep problems and a significant increase in winter depression.

“To remove exposure to natural light in the morning from the population without first doing the proper research into the likely consequences for public health would be very irresponsible.”

Whilst the economic impact of making what superficially appears to be a slight change is tempting, Government policy should be based on the best knowledge available at the time the decision was taken instead of pandering to what appears to be a politically expedient solution.

Who could argue against more light for playing with your kids? Who could object to reducing road accidents? Who could object to such a small change bringing billions into the British economy and increasing tourism employment?

Independent, academically neutral experts – that’s who.

The expertise of Dr von Schantz and his colleague Dr Thomas Kantermann leads them to predict that moving the clock forward would lead to a delay in sleep patterns. This means that more people would stay awake later and sleep less. Ultimately this would mean that the next morning we would not be operating at 100 per cent efficiency. When that happens day after day, it could lead to severe problems ranging from work performance to seasonal depression.

A comprehensive cost and benefits review into the scientific evidence behind the Private Members Bill must be had. Evidence from neutral academic sources supporting in matters that concern public health and safety should be essential in the formulation of all Government policy.

 In this instance it really doesn’t appear to be satisfactory.

 Why not look at their critique of the research and make up your own mind?

 Main arguments against joining the Central European Time Zone by Drs von Schantz and Kantermann:

1. To date there have been no studies of the physiological, psychological, and other health effects.
2. Based on what we already know about the body clock, such effects are likely to be either negative or very negative.
3. The argument that changing time zones would somehow create more light hours in winter is spurious. British Summer Time ends at the time it does because at that time of year, it is dark when most people go home anyway. What the change back to GMT in winter accomplishes is more light in the morning without any loss of light after the end of office hours.
4. The human body clock is only sensitive to the effects of light at specific times of day. Light is only able to advance the body clock in the morning. This is crucial, because the set point for our internal body clock is greater than 24 hours. Thus, we are required to constantly advance our clock with the help of morning light. If this does not happen, the result is likely to be a delayed sleep phase. Because we still need to get up in the morning, this will result in less sleep, which may result in more accidents, lower productivity, and an increased risk of winter depression.
5. It would be totally irresponsible to decide on a shift to Central European Time without any research on the effects on human health.

The Research Paper evidence refuted

In the ‘Research Paper’ Ms Harris has summarised the benefits of shifting to Central European Time for the nation. Drs von Schantz and Kantermann have included a point-by-point critique of this highlighting the flawed logic and dangers that result from the current approach.

Claimed benefits of joining the Central European Time Zone

1.     Saving 80 lives and preventing hundreds of serious injuries each year

A) Insignificant number — 80 out of 3,000 (0.27%)

B) Fatal accidents inNorthern Scotlandwould actually increase

2.     Creating 60,000–80,000 new jobs in leisure and tourism, bringing an extra £3.5– 4.5 billion into the domestic tourist economy each year

A) Claim not supported by any evidence.

B) Who will want to visit the Greenwich Observatory if GMT becomes Lisbon Standard Time?

3.     Lowering electricity bills by maximising the available daylight and flattening the peak in evening demand

A) The claim amounts to a modest and insignificant 0.6% saving.

B) If claim of increased leisure activities were correct, then an increased use of motor vehicles would follow.

4.     Improving the quality of life for older people

A) Claim not supported by any evidence.

B) Older people will wake up earlier and go to bed earlier naturally regardless of clock time.

5.     Helping to make people healthier and tackle obesity by giving people more time to exercise and play sport outside in the evening

A) Claim not supported by any evidence

B) An American study indicates that people living at the western edge of a time zone suffer from increased winter depression with increased carbohydrate cravings, overeating, and weight gain

 6.     Cutting 447,000 tonnes of CO₂ helping meet out international commitments to cut the UKs carbon output at minimal cost

A) The UK’s total carbon footprint is 500 million tonnes. Thus, even if this unproven claim were true, the savings would be 1/1,000 of the total CO₂ production

7.     Reducing insurance premiums by decreasing the number of road accidents and incidences of burglary

A) During the last year, road accidents and injuries have decreased – but the average premium has increased by 1/3

 8.     Reducing opportunist crime and the fear of crime in the evenings

A) Claim not supported by any evidence

1. 9.     Making the nation happier – including reducing the effects of Seasonal Affective Disorder
   1. Claim not supported by any evidence

In fact, an American study showed a 30% higher incidence in winter depression at the Western boundary of a time zone at the same latitude compared to the Eastern boundary

Frederic Filloux has written an interesting blog for the Guardian on how to make money out of digital news. The way news/entertainment is consumed is evolving in a mass personalised way. Technology has made  sharing easier and tailoring content to individual demands easier. As portable tablets become cheaper less and less people are willing to accept except what Clay Shirky calls the “printed paper bundle”.

Note to Rupert Murdoch: this direction of travel is powered by an immovable force – peoples desire for choice. I am excited about NetFlix’s entry into the UK market, not because they are doing anything the tech-savies aren’t aware of, but because they are trying to bring the bespoke consumption mindset to the masses – and have already forced LoveFilm to up their game.

Two old school news magazines – one in the UK and one in the US -have shown how technology can strengthen their presence and product.

Fraser Nelson, editor of The Spectator, believes that free content is a driver for selling paid content:

“The Spectator on Kindle or iPad… now make up 8 per cent of our sales, a figure that is growing fast… We charge for the magazine but have no intention of charging for the blogs… Best of all, we’ve been picking up two (paying) digital readers for every one news-stand reader lost… People read The Spectator in many ways and for different reasons. But the important thing is that more people are reading us than ever before.”

Lauren Indvik’s piece on the Atlantic is worth a read:

“One of the most interesting aspects of the Atlantic’s digital success is the unexpected effect it has had on print. Although Smith acknowledges that tablets and ereaders are cannibalizing print newsstand sales, both magazine circulation and print ad revenues are up, “largely due to the brand impact that our strategy has had”, he says. “The dramatic growth in digital audience has in turn driven demand for the magazine, because so many more millions are now aware of it.”

I’m not sure anyone has found the best model yet but one thing is for sure: People have money, and many like spending it. Companies want to reach these people to suggest where they should dispense that cash. This means there is money to be made from good content. Though this does not mean that all newspapers have to do is transfer what they have always done on-line.