The Commons science and technology committee has reported, and has made some excellent practical recommendations:
- only one doctor should be required to refer for an abortion
- 24-week legal limit for an abortion remains
- nurses should be able to carry out early abortions
- the second of the two pills for early medical abortions should be able to be taken at home

Let’s hope these recommendations are taken up by the Department of Health.

When it’s armed robbery, according to Municipal Judge Teresa Carr Deni of Philadelphia. Faced with a defendant who forced a prostitute to have sex with him and three other men at gunpoint, she decided at the preliminary hearing to drop the rape and assault charges and hold him on the bizarre charge of armed robbery for “theft of services”. Apparently she thought this was appropriate as the prostitute consented to sex and - fairly obviously - didn’t get paid. No matter that she had a gun to her head and was forced into sex, regardless of what she does for a living.

The full, unbelievable, story is over at Albert’s, with more info at the Philadelphia Inquirer. This judge is up for election this autumn; let’s hope she gets dumped.

Strategic development control committee has passed the application for 250-odd new homes on Rose Hill. Hurrah.

The pay gap in this country means that women might as well stop getting paid for the year on 30 October. Men, of course, go on getting paid for the rest of the year. Today is the first Women’s No Pay Day, called by Fawcett and Unison.

Here’s what needs to happen to get closer to equal pay:

Transparency: Mandatory pay checks for all organisations or require organisations to publish pay information in annual reports.
Level playing fields: Tackling long hours and increasing flexibility at work, including at senior positions would enable women and men to compete on a level playing field.
Let women stand together: Allow group actions supported by unions so that the burden is not on individual women to speak out.
Funding: The Government should clear up its own backyard and fund equal pay deals for women in the public sector.
Simplify the law: Equal pay cases are harder to take than other discrimination cases, meaning women can’t get justice. The Government must end these unfair anomalies.

And here’s where you should sign up to show your support.

Peter Tatchell in saying something sensible shocker:
“I don’t believe the defence of free speech requires the Oxford Union to proactively offer these hate-mongers a prestigious platform to secure respectability for their odious views”

Those with long memories will sigh as they realise that the egotistical buffoons of the Oxford Union Society have decided, once again, that their Oxford-educated brains can defeat Nick Griffin and David Irving in debate.

PS: Peter Tatchell is someone for whom I have great respect for his record of activism for lesbian and gay and human rights. Since deciding to stand for the the Green Party in Oxford East at the next election, though, he has come out with some considerable nonsense, so it’s good to see him back on form.

I’ve spent the last five weeks pretty much away from home - the Liberal Democrat, Labour and Conservative party conferences in various seaside towns (for work, obviously), a week on leave and a week working from Manchester. My incredibly out-of-date thoughts on the party conferences won’t, of course, be any longer of interest; suffice it to say that I was most disappointed that Cameron’s rebrand of the Conservative party has sounded the deathknell of the excellent shellfish bar that was an unlikely fixture in the Wintergardens during his party’s soujourns there in the past. A wholewheat muffin bar, though worthy, really wasn’t an adequate replacement, I thought.

Inbetween party conferences and a week working from Manchester, I did a spontaneous thing, and got on a plane to Istanbul. Isn’t it wonderful, and unimaginable, given that childhood holidays were booked through brochures, to be able to go online on a Tuesday and book a holiday leaving on the Wednesday?

Still, Istanbul took a little while to worm its way into my affections. Travelling by metro and tramvay to my hotel, I had reason to curse the poor signage of public transport, and the so-helpful men who held onto my elbow just a little longer than necessary when giving directions. In the dusk, I failed to spot the Haghia Sophia and Sultanahmet Mosque as we passed them, and my first evening, despite a lovely meal in a seventh-floor restaurant with views across the Golden Horn, was marred by constant harrassment, which I didn’t manage to shake off until back at my hotel.

Eventually, though, I began to give in to Istanbul. One evening, I was on the metro and an older woman got on and sat opposite me. She was eating a roll, and my eyes must have given away my surprise, as it seemed unlikely for her age and gender, to eat on the go. She broke off a piece of her roll to give to me, and as she did, I realised why: the sun had just gone down, and she was breaking her Ramadan fast, and offering me bread to break mine. I smiled no, but the man next to me accepted. The older woman’s roll eventually went five ways to other passengers.

I ate some really great food, pointing at the unfamiliar words in the menu to waiters who filled my plate with mezze and fresh fish. By far the best meal I had was standing in the port of the Asian shore, watching the hundreds of fishermen pull their lines out of the water with wriggling silver fish on the end, their sons selling them on to the men who owned the portable braziers. The super-fresh fish were gutted and slapped onto the grill, and two minutes later, for about eighty pence, were in a bread roll with onion and lettuce and lemon juice. Then there was time for tiny cups of Turkish tea, and sticky semolina treats, before riding the packed ferry back to Europe. Other culinary highlights included drinking salep, a thick hot creamy drink made from orchid roots sprinkled with cinnamon, in the gardens of the Sultanahmet Mosque.

My favourite part of the holiday, though, was visiting the Cagaloglu hammam, which I did twice. As you walk in, you are given the key to the ornate wooden cubicle with frosted glass windows, mirror, shelf and day bed. You wrap the tartan fringed shawl around yourself, slip on some sandals, and walk through to the main steam room, with basins around the edge and a hot marble slab in the centre. After a preliminary dousing with warm water, one of the enormous women masseuses beckons, and you lie down to be soaped, scraped and pummelled, and then have your hair washed. In a blissful state, wrapped in big fluffy towels, you eat Turkish delight and sip coffee in the anteroom. Both times I took more than three hours over the whole process. Utterly delightful.

In fact, in the end I liked Istanbul so much that I misread my tickets, and missed my flight home, earning me another four hours with Byzantine art, terrrible traffic and thick bitter coffee. Marvellous.

Tonight Oxford’s south east area committee unanimously supported the redevelopment plans for Rose Hill. It’s now up to strategic development control committee to decide whether or not to give it the final go-ahead. If they do, then we’ll see bricks and mortar in January, and hopefully the first people moving into some of the 250-odd new homes sometime in the early summer of 2008. The much-delayed scheme will also bring nearly half a million pounds of planning gain money for community facilities and infrastruture improvements to the estate. I like being a councillor on days like this.

£20,000 to keep the out-of-school provision open, secured by the Labour group, in the teeth of Lib Dem opposition. (Apparently following the correct procedure is more important than supporting low income families. Well, I guess if you thought that you would be a Lib Dem.)

The back story is here, and here.