Woman's Hour - 18/02/2010

With Jenni Murray. Recent skirmishes among the political parties over the question of how society should pay for an ageing population indicate how close we are to a general election and how much is at stake. Jenni is joined by the Conservative leader David Cameron live in the studio for an in-depth interview as part of our Winning Women's Votes series. When interviewed on Woman's Hour in 2005 he said his wife had seen a 'bunch of white men' on the party's benches in the House of Commons and told him the party needed to look more like the country it represented. David Cameron has introduced A-lists to get more women into Westminster, the so-called 'Cameron Cuties'. So how much has the party changed, and what policies might sway female voters? And a new international exhibition, Mrs Delany and Her Circle, opens at the Sir John Soane's Museum in London. It celebrates the artistic versatility of the Georgian gentlewoman Mary Delany. Not only was she a significant figure in the practice of natural history, but during her long life her pursuit of a wide range of intellectual, artisitic and scientific areas intrigued her contemporaries, and many of those who have learnt about her since. To discover more about this influential woman Jenni is joined by the artist Jane Wildgoose, whose installation within the exhibition explores the important friendship between Mary Delany and the Duchess of Portland, and Amy Meyers, an expert on the 18th century and the life of Mrs Delany.