Woman's Hour - 26/10/2009

With Sheila McClennon. By the time the new Equality Bill has gone through parliament we may have had a change of government. So how keen would a new administration be to enforce what is seen as the most far-reaching discrimination legislation for many years, legislation which will have a major impact on every employer in the country? Woman's Hour finds out how women and other groups will be affected by the bill. With Teresa May and Vera Baird. Kamilya Jurban is a Palestinian singer, instrumentalist and composer and one of the most prominent contemporary artists in the Middle East. Karine Polwart is a Scottish folk singer-songwriter whose debut album won the Radio 2 Folk Album of the Year Award in 2005. They have been brought together to perform at the Barbican and will be giving a taste of their unique collaboration, live in the studio. More than half a million women die each year from complications during pregnancy or labour. As the UN Population Fund meets to try and push this issue higher up the development agenda, Sheila asks what can be learnt from the countries that have already successfully tackled the problem. 'To become a spectator of one's own life is to escape the suffering of life.' Gyles Brandreth has heeded his hero Oscar Wilde's advice and has been writing a daily diary since he was eleven. Gyles and Oona King, the former Labour MP, discuss what compels people to publish their private observations and confessions, and whether men and women approach diaries differently.