Women's votes need to be won

Jo Phillips was head of media in former Liberal Democrat leader Paddy Ashdown's office. Along with a handful of other Ashdown confidants, she was part of the eponymous 'Jo Group' which confidentially advised the party leader on his relations - and secret negotiations - with Tony Blair and New Labour.

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Jo Phillips

Carefully draped silk scarves, dangling rather oddly from one shoulder seem to have replaced bright red fitted jackets as the uniform of New Labour women.

Unfortunately the scarves that one assumes are issued by Millbank's fashion police along with the pagers aren't anywhere near big enough to disguise one of the most unflattering aspects of all women in Britain today - we're still second class citizens in far too many ways and all political parties must share the blame for that.

Thirty years on from the Equal Pay Act, women are still paid less than men. Those of us that work full time can expect, on average, to get 82% of what our male counterparts earn; for women who work part time that figure drops to 60%.

Women hold fewer senior jobs at every level of society whether that be in the boardroom, the judiciary or the House of Commons. The much trumpeted decision by health minister Yvette Cooper to take her full entitlement of 18 weeks maternity leave is seen as a major breakthrough yet if Ms Cooper was in Italy she'd get five months, in Finland nine months and her partner would be entitled to 42 days paternity leave.

Gender politics

Look around the benches of the Commons - all those Labour women who promised so much and delivered so little - some of them can't even think up their own questions to the prime minister for heaven's sake. On the Tory side it seems to be a choice between Ann Widdecombe or the hapless Teresa May whose shoes warrant more column inches than her speeches.

On the Lib Dem benches the picture's even more dismal and unlikely to improve. But at cabinet level, the picture's even worse. Too many grey suited, unremarkable blokes in charge while the few women that are there are in " housekeeping jobs" with the exception of Clare Short who's regarded, like Mo Mowlam, as a slightly batty and opinionated aunt who could after one too many Christmas sherries become dangerously "off message".

And isn't it ironic that the admirable Harriet Harman now freed from the shackles of government is a constant source of radical ideas and initiatives - the latest not that far removed from the Wages for Housework Campaign of 30 years ago which was dismissed as outrageous lunacy then.

Empty promises

With an election just around the corner women are going to be wooed by all the parties. How stupid do they think we are? How many times do they think we're going to fall for the promises and the short lived effort to pick up the metaphorical damp towels of the last four years and take us out to dinner providing we're back in time for the football?

I can hardly bear to think of the next few weeks with soft lifestyle features on Tony, William and Charles as they once again remember how important the women's vote is and actually how much power we have.

It's equality, stupid

Never mind tweaking at the edges of childcare and helping teenage mothers to stay on at school - all of that's incredibly important but so too is safe and reliable public transport, equality of health care and access to education. But most of all it's about equality.

Thirty years on from the Equal Pay Act it's a disgrace that women are still having to take their employers to court to get the pay they're entitled to.

It's a disgrace that anyone should have to go through the trauma, stress and indignity of having to fight for a paltry £3,000 a year extra simply to put them on an equal footing with a male colleague and it's a disgrace that successive governments have turned a blind eye to the underhand, unscrupulous practices of too many employers who hide beneath a blanket of flexible labour markets and blurred lines of responsibility.

There's been a lot of controversy surrounding a book called The Surrendered Wife recently. In either April or May women will have the chance to say No to being "Surrendered Voters" by simply asking which party might actually recognise, update and enforce the Equal Pay Act. It'd be a start, 30 years on.