Civil Legal Aid
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Baroness King of Bow: My Lords, in the time available I want to make three points about the proposed cuts to civil legal aid. First, the cuts target the poorest but reduce standards for all of us. Secondly, the cuts in their present form actually increase costs to the taxpayer. Thirdly, not only do they restrict access to justice but, as we have heard, they specifically remove legal aid from children who are victims of medical accidents or negligence.
Speech: London Mayoral campaign launch 2010
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The launch speech from Oona's campaign to become Labour's mayoral candidate, Haverstock School, 26 May 2010
I’m delighted to be back here in the area I grew up, and at Haverstock, my old school. Today is the beginning of a journey that I hope will take me from Haverstock to City Hall. But I’d also like to talk a bit about the journey’s you’ll take, and the journey’s you’ll make in your lives.
If you took a helicopter and flew from Epping forest to the South Downs, from Rainham Marshes to Richmond park, what would you see? You’d see a citadel stretching in every direction, containing fantastic landmarks, a river running through it and big green parks.
Do women leaders have to be childless fortysomethings?
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British politics at the top end? It's a sea of fortysomething white male faces. The real coalition is the Coalition of Chaps, and a country that is diverse and mixed-up, is represented by a political class that's anything but. Now, though, some excellent news: at least in London we might have a real choice, because Oona King, one of the best of the Labour women, will let it be known tomorrow that she wants to be mayor.
Yes, she will be taking on the always formidable Ken Livingstone in the race to be the Labour candidate; but King, who thought that Livingstone was a good mayor, points out that he has been around for four decades. "It's nobody's birthright, and I don't believe in the hereditary principle." So there is a chance of a mixed-race woman arriving to represent this most mixed of the world's great cities.
