The work of Jenny Willott is to be applauded as she works with retailers to try to reduce the ridiculous segregation of toys into gender groupings. Jenny is the Liberal Democrat MP for Cardiff Central and Minister for Women & Equalities, a role she has held since December 2013. The article in Fridays Guardian explains how these meetings and this approach is an attempt to broaden the life choices for children whose future careers can be impacted by the toys they play with at an early age. Many parents are infuriated with the narrow polarisation of toy choices when they know that most of their children do not fit such a polarised world. There is however something of a irony of the Government focusing on toy shops when they have achieved so little in their own backyard. The gender balance of the political parties is way behind the pace in terms of what truly represents us as a nation. This failure to represent that nation is not just a problem of gender, it goes deeper into issues of class, of profession or working background, and of course of racial mix. Arguably Politics is the work of the possible, and it certainly seems easier to persuade a small group of retailers to make changes than forcing 650 local political party associations to change their selection processes.

Even outside Politics things are not easy, a blog posted on the Guardian on Tuesday referred to the gender imbalance in the music industry. Deborah Coughlin writes that “according to the latest research 47% of women in music earn under £10,000 a year, compared with 35% of men, and as for the NME awards, this year’s award for Blondie marked only the third time a woman has been included as a winner of the Godlike Genius award. Women only have a 15% chance of owning a label or becoming a manager and in 2010 PRS announced that out of all the writers on their books, a mere 14% were women.” As a Minister in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, perhaps Jenny can turn some of her focus to the music industry next.

We can all play our part, in terms of our toy buying, and our support of musicians. As we approach the General Election in May 2015, there is plenty of time to avoid the limited choice of candidates that the main political parties seem to have lined up for us. The need for credible Independent candidates who together with small parties such as the Greens can disturb the current equilibrium is acute. The major parties do not seem to have addressed the disproportionate representation of Public Schools and Oxbridge in the next intake any better than in previous generations, and far too few of our current politicians have life skills from outside of the traditional Party Political finishing School approach.