Woman's Hour - 19/11/2009

With Jenni Murray. The 850,000 users of the online parenting site Mumsnet are being courted by the political leaders. Gordon Brown took part in a webchat with mothers in October, resulting in the unfortunate Biscuitgate affair, and now it is David Cameron's turn. Apparently he's an oatcake man. The chatroom is seen as a testing ground for family-friendly policies. But why are mothers seen as such a crucial constituency in this election? Do mothers have a collective political identity, distinct from that of women without children, or from fathers? Jenni talks to the co-founder of Mumsnet Justine Roberts, political commentator and journalist for The Times Rachel Sylvester, and Rosie Campbell, Senior Lecturer in Politics at Birkbeck University. A new BBC1 series called Paradox stars Tamzin Outhwaite. It's an edge-of-the seat police drama with a twist - the crimes haven't happened yet. So how do you go about changing the future? Woman's Hour meets the series creator and writer, Lizzy Mickery, to talk about bringing faith and science into popular drama. And we all know it's environmentally sound to peg out washing, but is the British weather a legitimate excuse for the perpetual rumble of the tumble dryer? Why do so many of us have an aversion to the clothes horse? And what about flat-dwellers who are prevented from putting lines outside? Professor Elizabeth Shove of Lancaster University, the author of 'Comfort, Cleanliness and Convenience'; and Bernadette Vallely, Chair of the Women's Environmental Network, join Jenni to discuss the ethics of drying with or without electrical assistance.