FEMINIST MINISTERS TAKE THE LEAD ON DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

He should be enjoying himself but he looks as if he’s hating every minute of his break. And what doubts are being sown in the mind of the darkly brooding, nail-chewing, suspicious Mr Brown as he reads that David Miliband wants to replace him?

Actually, I suspect that Miliband is merely flying a kite. He would probably prefer to take over as leader after Labour has lost the next election but, since the female of the species is more deadly than the male, Mr Brown should also be casting a beady eye over the activities of Labour’s deputy leader and Minister for Women, Harriet Harman.

In the Prime Minister’s absence, Ms Harman has discovered what Tony Blair used to describe as an “eye-catching initiative”. Along with Vera Baird, the Solicitor-General, and Maria Eagle, the Justice Minister, Ms Harman is fronting the Government’s proposals to reform the law on murder and domestic violence which, as a QC and former Solicitor-General, she is certainly qualified to do.

However, she is also such an ardently strident feminist that questions are being raised about her impartiality. Asked recently about her leadership ambitions, she joked that she couldn’t become Prime Minister because, if she did, the nation’s airports would be filled with men fleeing the country.

Into this important and sensitive debate has stepped the eminently sane, sensible and courageous Erin Pizzey. I first interviewed Erin on my radio programme, standing in the first women’s refuge in the country which she founded to offer shelter for victims of domestic violence. A nationwide network followed.

Erin points out that the theory that violence is almost exclusively perpetrated by men against women is nonsense. She says that 62 of the first 100 women to enter her first refuge in 1971 admitted that they had perpetrated violence against their partners.

She adds that she will never forget one woman who was staying in her refuge telling her, in chilling tones: “Knives are a great leveller.”

Whenever Erin was a guest on my programme we always received many telephone calls from men who were the victims of violence at the hands of their female partners.

Men are usually bigger and stronger than women and, especially when drunk, may also be more readily inclined to violence but Erin’s advice is that if women are in fear of violence they should get out of the house where it is happening rather than killing the man concerned.

It is vitally important that participants in this debate adopt a balanced, unbiased approach.

I am totally in favour of any laws that will deter violent men from abusing women or vice versa but those laws must be seen to be just and fair to everyone, not sanctions imposed by a small cabal of politically motivated feminist extremists.

* E-mail Jimmy at jimmy.young@express.co.uk