The winners of the fifth set of the Scottish Widows & Dods Women in Public Life Awards were announced last night. The awards aim to “celebrate women leaders in society and seek to recognise and promote the work of women in politics, business, the civil service and community leadership.”

There are 12 categories, recognising businesswomen and sportswomen as well as public servants and politicians.

Here are the winners - follow the links to read more about them on the awards website:

Businesswoman of the Year Laura Tenison MBE, Founder and Managing Director, Jojo Maman Bebe

Devolved Parliament or Assembly Member of the Year Nicola Sturgeon MSP, Cabinet Secretary for Health & Wellbeing, Scottish Government

Journalist of the Year Anne McElvoy, Public Policy Editor, The Economist and BBC broadcaster

Local Government Personality of the Year Cllr Mary Mears, Leader, Brighton and Hove City Council

MP of the Year Caroline Lucas, Member of Parliament for Brighton Pavilion

Peer of the Year Baroness Shirley Williams

Public Affairs Achiever of the Year Ros Altmann, Director General, Saga.

Public Servant of the Year Michelle Stoops, Independent Sexual Violence Advisor, NHS Liverpool Community Health

Sportswoman or Team of the Year Victoria Pendleton MBE

Voluntary Sector Achiever of the Year Sophie Andrews, Chair of Samaritans, The Samaritans

People's Choice Award Justine Greening MP

Lifetime Achievement Award Baroness Shirley Williams

The lifetime ban on gay men giving blood is likely to be lifted.  Reports suggest it will be recommended only gay men who have been celibate for a decade be allowed to donate blood.  The ban on gay men donating blood was introduced in the 1980s in a bid to reduce risk of HIV contamination in donor blood.
 
The UK will be following Japan, South Africa and Australia who have begun to relax the rules regarding gay men giving blood.  In a recent survey at Brighton Gay Pride it was estimated 95% of gay men were willing to give blood.

You can find out where and when you can donate blood in England and North Wales here, http://www.blood.co.uk/  , Wales here http://www.welsh-blood.org.uk/giving-blood/and in Scotland here http://www.scotblood.co.uk/

Last night P J Harvey became the first artist to win the Mercury Music Award twice. Harvey beat competition from Adele, Katy B (no, me neither), Tinie Temper and Ghostpoet amongst others. A decade after winning the award for New York inspired Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea, Let England Shake marks an unexpected symmetry for the Mercury awards.  Years in the making, Harvey’s 2011 album involved much research into wars and contains 3 songs about the Gallipoli campaign.

I’m not sure, but this could also be the first time the sentence ‘First woman to...’ has not been used for an award win.

Kate

Today, Monday 5th of September, marks the 30th anniversary of the women’s protest at Greenham Common. The Women’s Peace Camp was set up in protest against plans to install nuclear cruise missiles at the base in Berkshire.

Scores of women left their homes and families to ‘take the toys from the boys’, amongst them Fay Weldon and Bea Campbell.

The missiles were removed in March 1991, the last members of the camp left in 2000.

You can see more images of Greenham Common on the BBC Gallery

Kate

It seems both sisterhood and Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells still means something in this day and age. As of October this year women readers and writers need no longer be shuffled over to the Women’s Fiction section of WHSmith. All thanks to two women from Tonbridge, Claire Leigh and Julia Gillick who wrote to WHSmith’s chief executive Kate Swann despairing of the pink fluffiness of the Women’s Fiction section and lack of any classics. Their appeal to Swann’s sense of sisterhood worked and now teacher Gillick is encouraging her students to write to supermarkets regarding their choice of shelving labels.  

The publishing industry has yet to be queried about its need to put images of disembodied feet (though I suspect the answer to be ‘because all women like shoes’) on novels that fall comfortably into the uncomfortably successful genre of Chick Lit.

Kate