More women in elected office will help tackle harassment and bad behaviour

Women have faced sexual exploitation and harassment since time immemorial. But today, something different is happening. Sex pests, gropers, untamed rapists, physical and mental abusers are being 'outed' and exposed by media outlets as they are named and shamed.

So, Michael Fallon has fallen on his sword. If all of the gossip is to be believed, then more will follow. It brings not only the individual into disrepute, but the system too, that allows those individuals to behave as they do, with impunity.

He says his behaviour of ten years ago is not acceptable today. I have news for him. It wasn't acceptable then, either.

The abuse of women is a deep seated problem in our politics and our society. It is no wonder that so few women choose to stand for elected office at any level, as a recent report by the Fawcett Society pointed out.

Parliament, the centre of law making designed to protect the innocent, the young, the vulnerable from sexual abuse, has shown itself incapable of protecting those within its own walls. The Westminster Village, where power and access to power seems able to protect perpetrators and where party whips seemingly refuse to take action to curtail inappropriate and sometimes criminal, behaviour, has to change.

For women and some young men, there appears to have been no sanctuary, no recourse to real help in a system that is rotten to the core. Why might that be? MPs employ their own staff, that is true, so complaining about a boss to that boss is difficult, but what is really at the root of the problem is the culture that exits. It means that some men in powerful positions see their rights and the rights of those in lesser positions as different.

'The lads'; 'the boys'; ' the boss'; the culture. The 'lad' culture in Parliament and, let's not forget, in Councils too, has to go and the best way to address that is for more women to be elected.

The picture today of England's directly elected mayors seeking more power for themselves and more control, would carry more weight if they were not all of a certain gender. It cannot be acceptable that a city region cabinet has no women with the power to vote in decision-making. So, three cheers for Vince Cable and Jo Swinson, who, at a meeting with the Fawcett Society and with the support of senior councillors, Peers and MPs, have made their position clear. We want, we need, we will have more women encouraged to stand for election, to be elected and to take leadership roles.

* Flo Clucas OBE is the President of the ALDE Gender Equality Network and former President of the ALDE Group on the EU Committee of the Regions. She was a councillor in Liverpool City Council for 26 years.