We recently learnt that Philippa Stroud, who lost out to Lib Dem Paul Burstow in Sutton & Cheam, has a deceptive amount of influence upon Tory policy. As head of the Centre for Social Justice, she has had a major role in formulating almost 70 of the Conservative Party’s policies. Stroud has openly admitted to her Christian faith having a big day-to-day impact on her life and decision-making. She happens to be a member of the New Frontiers Church, where her husband is one of the main leaders. One of the church’s 17 values is as follows:
The next Women’s Forum is in a week:
As one of the open places in CUSU Women’s Campaign, I’ll be kicking off a campaign on Gender and Development in Michaelmas. Currently in an embryonic stage, the aim is to get more women thinking about the relationships between gender and development, what it means to them, and how they can get involved. I’ll be using Gender Agenda to regularly post ideas of what I might get up to next year and comments on articles, issues etc that I find that can start to get you thinking too. I’ll be advocating no particular understanding of development and hopefully one of the first discussions to be put on will be concern this very subject. In order to keep the discussion accessible, I’ll invite a mixture of academics, businessmen and women, charities and grass roots organisations onto panels.