- 16 hours ago
Catch up with all the latest politics news across the county, with Meghan Shaw hosting our International Women's Day special 2026.
In this episode, we were joined by Laura Edie, representing The Green Party at Dartford borough Council, and Labour + Co-op's Lia Mandacaras from Medway Council to discuss violence against women and girls and the unique challenges female councillors face.
In this episode, we were joined by Laura Edie, representing The Green Party at Dartford borough Council, and Labour + Co-op's Lia Mandacaras from Medway Council to discuss violence against women and girls and the unique challenges female councillors face.
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:22welcome to the Kent politics show live on KMTV the only show in Kent that gets your councillors
00:28talking I'm Megan Shaw and welcome to our International Women's Day special for 2026
00:33in honour of that this week this week marked five years since Sarah Everard was kidnapped
00:39from South London before being murdered by off-duty policeman Wayne Cousins on the 3rd of
00:44March 2021 Mr Cousins drove Miss Everard to Kent raped and then strangled her before her body was
00:51discovered a week later near Ashford Sarah's murder sparked vigils across the country and gave rise to
00:57a widespread debate about the role of British and British police in British society and women's
01:02safety in the UK on Tuesday I went to a vigil in Whitstable and here's some of the reaction
01:08I'm very proud to be here tonight and I'm so glad that we're honouring Sarah Everard but of course
01:16we're thinking of all the other women who at this very moment as we stand here are subjected to male
01:24violence in so many ways mental torture as well as psychological and physical torture and there
01:34are so many women who'll be experiencing that right now it's so important for us to come out and claim
01:42the streets reclaim the streets and do it on every occasion that we can bring the issue of women's rights
01:51rights and women's in very I would say vulnerable place in society at the moment when everything
02:02is moving so far to the right that even to stand up for women's rights is seen as being radical
02:08it's
02:08not radical that should be normal male violence is being normalized by figures who are so powerful now
02:20I'm joined by Medway councillors Leah Mandarrakas for labor and co-op and councillor Laura Eady a member of the
02:26Green Party at Dartford Borough Council now thank you for joining me both on international women's day special
02:32there's a lot to unpack there but I think first of all there was kind of the implication that the
02:36battle for women's
02:38safety and is not over do you feel that is that something a sentiment you share both I mean I
02:45do I think it's ongoing
02:47um and I think especially around international women's day I think it's important that we look at women's
02:53safety but also look at women's representation because I think that all the time I've had conversations
02:58about um around women's safety actually men don't fully understand it and so if there's if you've got
03:06a room full of men making policy around this they don't understand what it's like to sit at a bus
03:09stop
03:10and the man next to you is just a little bit too close and those kind of things that are
03:14less
03:14about actual violence and just about how safe women feel in the world it's important to have
03:19women standing and represented and Laura I'll come to you yeah absolutely agree with that you know we
03:23need to have women's voices there's no point in men making policy when they can't ever completely
03:28understand what it feels like you know our following council meetings I'm always reluctant to walk home
03:33because the lighting's not great and um yeah and and and I think it's a common experience for every
03:40woman to know what it's like to have a man follow you too close to you or take advantage um
03:46in authority
03:47position and it's not until we do get these women's voices heard and practical measures such as you know
03:53like I say lighting CCTV um always putting at the forefront women's safety um and also believe in women
04:01when it comes to you know assault and abuse I think it's only about two percent of of rape um
04:07reports are
04:08actually ending conviction at the moment which is absolutely appalling you know we need to be
04:12listening to women we need to be empowering and educating absolutely and something that um
04:18dimension there as well was that um women's safety seems to be at odds with um for example the right
04:24that she said and yet a lot of kind of reforms campaign revolves around women's safety and and creating
04:30what they call safe spaces for women so is that something you disagree with I don't disagree with safe
04:36spaces for women but I find it quite interesting that reform have managed to put themselves in the
04:41women's safety space when their councillors are being suspended and going to prison for abusing their
04:46exes I don't know how that how and also just there's a general kind of tone of talking down women
04:54they've got one female MP who's always shouted over like I don't know how they've managed to make
04:59themselves in this women's safety space that's something you agree with Laura absolutely I mean
05:05I've I've been elected first in 2019 but since then the last few years there's been so much more abuse
05:12online I've experienced and I do think it's this rise in the right that's that's fueled that you know
05:17it's they put sort of a front on reform to say that they're all about protecting women but in fact
05:23we know that it is quite the opposite there's not empowering there and like we say a councillor has
05:28been suspended for coercive control and I just feel like you know it's a lot of talk it's similar to
05:34when reform are now running Kent County Council and obviously they got in on a one-liner of blaming
05:40immigrants but actually when it comes to it when you actually have to walk the walk they're not
05:45doing running our council services properly you know so it's very easy to say I empower women I'm we're
05:50going to look after your area things like this but actually when it comes to it I don't think
05:55they're being honest in in what they're saying at all and of course reform aren't here to defend
05:59themselves what was interesting what you said Laura about I suppose the difficulties in the
06:03challenges of being a female councillor is that something you both share that you feel like maybe
06:07you experienced perhaps more I don't know what you might say criticism or harassment perhaps than a
06:13male councillor I think it's particularly in online spaces and I think that is that is the rise of the
06:20right like you were saying it is that kind of the more they've risen the more there is it's abuse
06:24that's across the piece but I think that it's much more targeted at women it becomes about how you
06:29look um how you look and how you present as opposed to what you're actually saying and attacking the
06:37argument I think um and I've I was only elected in 2023 but I've seen that rise in the last
06:42year it's
06:43much much worse than it was yeah I mean I've had I've had a death threat last year um because
06:49I
06:49actually have taken a stand against the far right and putting yourself in those spaces is scary but
06:54I do feel like you know I've got a 13 year old daughter and I want I want it to
06:58be better for
06:58her um as she gets older and women shouldn't feel so vulnerable and like we say I think that the
07:04more
07:04women we do get into these political spaces the better things will become but we do need to have
07:10society in general taking a stand and when we're seeing women come under attack especially for men to
07:16understand you know it's not it's not okay and for them to step up and say look we need to
07:20make sure
07:21that other men are behaving appropriately do you feel then it's been more work within these council
07:27spaces that more women feel that they you know can take up a seat medway council for is fairly diverse
07:33but I wouldn't say it's 50 50 um the as far as I'm aware the labour group on medway council
07:38is 50 50
07:39obviously there's been some changes but we definitely were in 23 um the other groups have
07:45well the opposition the collective opposition have one woman so um it is it's like we've done a lot of
07:51work to get women to stand as well because I think that is the problem I think if you go
07:56to packed
07:56groups or I'm sure you are involved in different community groups actually so often they're run by
08:01women um women know what their communities need they know everything on the ground and they're running
08:06those things and they're doing the work behind the scenes but they don't see politics as a space
08:10for them um so we've done a lot of work in those community groups and trying to find those women
08:14who like I said know everything and are doing politics but they don't see frontline politics
08:19and elected office as somewhere that they can do men just do it they don't question themselves in the
08:24same way and is it interesting for you Laura obviously you say on on the left where we might assume
08:30that you know they might be very female heavy or we know there are a lot of young green voters
08:34that are
08:35young women or you might you might think that it might be 50 50 and yeah all of kent county
08:39councillors that are part of the green party are male do you also feel that um that there's still
08:44a battle there there's still I don't know progress to be made yeah absolutely as it is in general
08:49society and I feel like I mean a real barrier for me personally like I say I've got a 13
08:54year old
08:55and um obviously it's the mum guilt you're trying to balance everything and women tend to be the
09:00primary carers so I do think we need to do a lot more around making politics and work in general
09:06more um us more able to access politics you're having hybrid meetings in the evenings just I think
09:13we really need to go over and beyond to actually say what will make it easier for women who generally
09:19are the mums um and you know I work nearly full time so to make it really happen and it's
09:25not enough
09:25to say oh you know no one wanted to step it step into that space you have to make it
09:30like you were
09:30saying you have to go out there and talk to women and say how how can we help you get
09:36into these
09:36positions absolutely and if I just bring us back to kind of where we're on about women's safety I'm
09:42going to come to you on this Leah so you talked about kind of um there were there weren't enough
09:47or
09:47perhaps these kind of policies need to be put in place by women rather than men when we've had
09:51under the Labour government we've had two female Home Secretaries we've had Yvette Cooper and then
09:56Shbana Mahmood and they've been a big kind of mission from the government has been to boost police
10:00officers and they've been saying they want more bobbies on the beat to kind of quote them there
10:04is this at odds with women's safety seeing as that I mean Sarah the murder of Sarah Everard really
10:10exposed perhaps the male corruption in that is in some um some police across across the country
10:18so I don't think more police on the streets can ever be at odds with women's safety I know that
10:23for me when I'm walking home at night if I see a police officer I feel safer and I think
10:27actually
10:27investing in the police force is one of the better ways to improve on women's safety and perhaps a
10:33boost in in women's in women's police officers perhaps if there were maybe an initiative for more
10:38more young women I suppose to to take up the jobs as as being part of the police as well
10:42I will say
10:43across midway as well we've actually got quite a lot of young um female police officers who again
10:48as I was saying before really understand what women's safety feels like um I think maybe that
10:54is what then I don't know what that looks like in the senior police officers I think that is where
10:59where you're starting to design the policy of how do we do late night policing and women's safety
11:04needs to focus on the top yeah I just think that we need to again um I don't know if
11:10necessarily
11:11women are involved in these in these discussions as much as they need to be that's something that
11:15definitely needs to happen and I do agree I do think we need I mean as every public sector um
11:21the
11:21police have been underfunded you know we're seeing I work in a school in special needs school we do need
11:27to
11:27make sure there is a funding there available and again to then make women make sure women are in the
11:31positions to to speak up on behalf of other women um and obviously things aren't where they need to be
11:37at the moment but I do feel like we need to be moving in the right direction and I hope
11:41that
11:41I think that there's a new paper coming out on women's safety so hopefully that will address some
11:46of those concerns well that's all we've got for this part but stay tuned as we'll be back after the
11:51break
12:00you
12:04you
12:05you
12:07you
12:22.
12:52.
13:22.
13:53.
13:54.
13:54.
13:54.
13:54.
13:54.
13:58.
14:00.
14:01.
14:03.
14:03.
14:03.
14:03.
14:03.
14:04.
14:05.
14:06.
14:11.
14:11.
14:12.
14:13.
14:13.
14:13.
14:13.
14:13.
14:13.
14:20.
14:20.
14:21.
14:22.
14:23.
14:25.
14:25.
14:25.
14:25.
14:25.
14:28.
14:31.
14:32.
14:32.
14:33.
14:34.
14:34.
14:34.
14:34.
14:34.
14:34.
14:37.
14:40.
14:41.
14:45.
14:49.
14:49.
14:49.
14:49.
14:49.
14:49.
14:49.
14:49.
14:49.
14:49.
14:49.
14:51.
14:51.
14:51.
14:51.
14:51.
14:51.
15:08welcome back to the kent politics show live on kentv i'm megan shaw and as sunday is
15:14international women's day we're discussing women's safety across kent and the rest of
15:20the country so i'm still joined by councillor laura edie for from the green party at daft council as
15:26well as uh leah mandarakas from medway council lab and cooperative so first of all i think something
15:31you mentioned there which is a great point to raise that obviously you're both mothers and
15:35and as well as that your councillors and and i suppose that involves lots of late night meetings
15:40lots of things a lot of councillors as well it's not their full day job they're balancing that too
15:45so that's never something i've ever seen really spoken about so would you like to just talk me
15:49through that like what's that's like for you um yeah so i actually got into politics through taking
15:54my daughter to litter pics when she was about five years old i wanted to show her about caring for
15:58the environment and looking after area and so she's always been my motivation um i wanted to make
16:04things better in for her but i do feel like there are real barriers you know it's it's not even
16:09a
16:10consideration that we have meetings in the evenings a lot of the time and they're not necessarily hybrid
16:14and how can possibly a woman a woman who is a primary caregiver and a mum you have to make
16:19a
16:20lot of sacrifices and um and it does it does fall on on women quite a lot but most women
16:25do work now
16:26alongside being mums and then you have your uh residents to represent so it's yeah it's a real
16:31balancing act and i just think i mean i come away from it just feeling quite guilty you know i
16:36feel
16:36like i'm failing in all areas to be honest i i feel that i think that's quite common for women
16:40in
16:40politics and i do feel if there was more support out there and and there could be ways to make
16:46things more fair and more equal and it shouldn't feel like you're sacrificing different parts of
16:50your life just to succeed in politics and like we say to have more women's voice in politics
16:55so i think it definitely needs to be addressed and discussed more leah is that something you also
16:59agree with so i really do particularly that thing around um the feeling like you're failing in all
17:05aspects you focus over here a little bit like let's let's spend a week really focusing on
17:10family oh my councillor work is slipping now let me work on that oh now my full-time job is
17:14slipping
17:14like let me work on that um and it's a constant kind of keep all of these plates spinning um
17:20i do
17:21agree around the hybrid working so we will do our labour things we have hybrid but we haven't yet got
17:27there in actual council meetings yet um across made around i think um i think also when we were
17:33trying to ask women to stand which like i said we are obviously heading towards the next level
17:37we won a full slate of candidates and we were really proud of the 50 50 slate that we had
17:41so
17:41we want to do that again when you're asking them it is sometimes being quite honest because as much
17:46as i i'd been around for quite a long time i joined the sure start campaign um so i'd seen
17:51politics
17:52done i didn't quite understand how much juggle there is so i think making sure that women are aware
17:57that there's quite it's quite a juggle absolutely something that's quite noticeable i think about
18:02keir starmer's cabinet is it's very very you know women heavy i mean in the future is that something
18:07you'd like to see at made way council of course we've got theresa murray but um would you think
18:11that there could be more women in there i think yes i think we always aim for 50 50 but
18:17actually for
18:17years it's been everywhere has been dominated by men so why do we stop at 50 why are we not
18:23going
18:23well actually i think this person would be perfect for this role we tend to go oh well we've got
18:2750
18:28percent women now we need men we need to balance this back out and actually i don't think we do
18:31if there are women there that are willing and able to do these roles i think they should be in
18:36the
18:36roles i don't see why we need to stop just because we finally reach 50 absolutely something you agree
18:42with there laura yeah yeah of course you know it's um we need to be doing what what's best for
18:48those
18:49particular positions and if a woman has the right qualifications and and we just need i do think
18:55women tend to need a bit more encouragement though because like we say the world of politics doesn't
18:59tend to be something that i mean it's not something i ever thought i was going to go into
19:04um men tend to have a bit more confidence i think in a lot of these positions and it's really
19:09important
19:09that you just sometimes sit down with someone so as a counsellor my main role obviously i have the
19:14meetings in the evenings but it's really connecting with the community and what i think women tend to be
19:18more emotionally intelligent and actually it's a perfect position for for a lot of women to go into
19:23so yeah it's just getting out there and and speaking to to other women about it really
19:28and if there are i suppose any women out there i suppose in kent or maybe even even in dartford
19:34who
19:34think that sounds like something that i'd want to get involved in like i i love my community but
19:39you know i'm nervous i'm scared like i'm not super into politics do you think it's still something that
19:43more more women should be should be going for yeah definitely like if i can do it you know i
19:50i didn't get
19:50a particular um education i didn't get a degree but i feel like i'm really proud and privileged to
19:56be in position now but i have got a platform you know something's going on internationally i can
20:01i can address things i can help my local community so i don't feel like women should feel limited
20:07um and i do feel that that is that is how it's sort of spoken to at the moment you
20:12don't sort of have
20:13um education at school particularly saying you know you can go further in these areas but until
20:19we address the the imbalance that's always going to be that way you're never going to have
20:23particularly men aren't always going to even understand the challenges so how on earth would
20:26they then address the policy needs and change that from that when you do get in these higher positions
20:31so it's so important absolutely absolutely and if i pivot slightly we'll go back to some women's
20:38safety so according to kent police we've got roughly one in five crimes are reported as being domestic
20:45abuse related and so violence against women and girl crimes are committed in the home more than four
20:50times as much as those on the roads or the streets even during um night nighttime economy hours
20:56do you think that lumping together perhaps all of these crimes sometimes i suppose maybe we lose
21:02we lose the trees for the woods and and perhaps you know there's not like men violence crime do you
21:08think perhaps that we we need to kind of address them as separate um i think it all stems from
21:14the
21:14same thing um so i think even violence within the home is still women being abused it's still women
21:20feeling unsafe i do think that obviously they need different strategies they come from a different
21:24place so bobby's on the beat isn't really going to help women feeling safe in their home um but i
21:29do
21:30think it stems from the same place in society which is just women always feeling slightly less than
21:34and laura i'll come to you and a lot of these solutions seem to be kind of we we we're
21:39responding
21:40to what's happening like we're reacting but there seems to be fewer solutions that seem to be
21:44preventative or perhaps maybe addressing kind of the issues that we we see all the time in social media
21:50things like like the harmful manosphere things like these do you think there needs to be more of
21:55kind of an official perhaps governmental or a council level strategy for preventative measures
22:00yeah and it's interesting what you're saying there about maybe ungrouping some of this because
22:05i do feel like like we see at dartford kent county council sometimes there's if there's a problem it
22:11will be fobbed off to the other authority i was doing some research but i found really interesting
22:16is that a big factor in crimes against women um and girls um is the temperature and an increase of
22:2440
22:24crimes a day for every 10 additional degrees that like the weather goes up so do you think
22:28we we should have a summer strategy do you think that maybe we there should be different kind of
22:33things that we consider during the summer rather than the winter i just wonder what you thought
22:36of that that really interested me yeah that's quite surprising actually i suppose that um i mean levels
22:41of drinking tend to go up so that's no surprise in terms of that yeah i think that we do
22:46need to be
22:46looking at different strategies um depending on what we have and and this is where different
22:51authorities do need to work together and i do think that collaboration doesn't always exist at the moment
22:56i actually went to a really good there was a meeting in in dartford where you had the police
23:00attend you had domestic violence charity you had minds and they all sat together and the council
23:06and the representative from each of them was at the table and women could just come along and drop in
23:10and i feel like that's that these are sort of really powerful interventions and and it's not
23:15necessarily then looking at afterwards oh how do we deal with what's happened it's saying right how do we
23:20get to the root of the situation can we invite women along to feel safe in these environments
23:25and then we can then discuss stuff as as a whole rather than it being that's your responsibility
23:29that's your responsibility we need to be working together to make women feel safer just put that
23:34to you too leah would you like to add anything yeah so um with a fourth hat i'm also a
23:40trustee of
23:40the sunlight center in gillingham and we do something so on the first tuesday of the month we do the
23:45one-stop shop for anyone who is um in a domestic abuse relationship or actually not sure because
23:50sometimes like i think um coercive control as we were speaking about before is such a thing that
23:56you don't necessarily know you can come you can get advice you can get advice on whether it you
24:01would describe your relationship whether it meets the criteria for domestic abuse and then advice on
24:05how to leave and safely kind of escape that situation and all of the services that you might need
24:11to access the legal services the housing services the support and mental health services they're all
24:16in one room and you can access them in one space because i think the average woman leaving a domestic
24:21abuse relationship attempts six times before they actually manage to leave and that's because this
24:26this bit has fallen down so we put them all in one space um let's make this exit strategy safe
24:33and
24:33quick as possible absolutely it's really easy isn't it to kind of to use a statistic i think when we
24:40talk
24:40about violence against women and crimes and domestic violence because you know there's this need to
24:45kind of show like that it that it does happen because so much of it i feel like is kind
24:50of unheard
24:51and told of behind closed doors in your home so like yeah and i think also when we talk about
24:57in
24:57statistics you miss the impact on that person's life that is a real person usually with children who
25:02are impacted by it too and so we can i don't know the statistics off the top of my head
25:06but we can say
25:0720 of women are going to end up in a domestic violence relationship but that's then those
25:11women might have three children the impact is huge from that i also think that um you know it's not
25:18it's not spoken about women aren't taking seriously when they're reporting these crimes and i feel like
25:23a lot of it's been minimized by um like figures like angel angel tate i mean even the epstein files
25:28we've
25:28seen men in power um time and time again sort of carrying on this misogyny and i've actually like
25:36say i've got a 13 year old daughter and she's told me that there's she's seen a lot of her
25:41boyfriends on not boyfriends but male friends on tick tock as young as 13 and they're sharing
25:46the epstein island um sort of videos and they're not realizing the implications you know it's become
25:53so normalized um this this violence against women and girls so i feel like in a way we're going backwards
26:01which is really worrying and i feel like we need to get hold of that um and make sure that
26:05interventions are in place and education as well for for our young people to realize that
26:10not only is you know we're talking about consent um to make sure that girls understand it as well as
26:16boys that the no means no um that we need to respect each other's sexes and yeah just i do
26:23think
26:23it needs to start with education absolutely and i suppose we'll come back and say the battle continues
26:28like what we we started talking at the beginning of the show well thank you both for joining me it's
26:34been
26:34a great discussion and that's all from us here at the kent politics show thank you once again
26:40it to our guest stick around for kent tonight straight after and we'll be back soon
Comments