What is it like being in a minority of two (women) in the Cabinet? She bares her teeth The gleam in her eye is unmistakable “Debate,” she begins, is conducted in a very male way. There is a delight in confrontation rather than in a cool examination of the issues but when it comes to it of course a sensible accommodation is reached.” There is another pause. Very occasionally she has to pause to construct a diplomatic reply. Is she the leftish champion of more public spending on state schools or the rightish proponent of radical and controversial schemes for vouchers and more Government-funded places in private schools? Does she want a Whitehall takeover or will the former local authority schools inspector be true to her past?She weaves her way Houdini-like, through determined attempts to pin her down, with a lightness of touch that must be the envy of her male colleagues. The more we learn about what they are proposing, the more I realise we should not allow boffins to dictate our lives.

Bravo to them for putting forward ideas, but my goodness, it does not mean we are obliged to accept them. I think they are living on another planet,” she said.News analysis, page 21Leading Article, page 22. JUDITH JUDD

and DONALD MACINTYRE
Who is Gillian Shephard? After 45 minutes’ interview it is hard to know. There is also likely to be a period of public consultation.Lady Olga Maitland, the Tory MP who helped force changes last week to the Family Homes and Domestic Violence Bill, renewed her attack yesterday on the divorce proposals.”The Law Commission are living in another world. As long as the public debate is well-informed, or even if it is not, this is what freedom of speech, and freedom of the press, is all about.”The Lord Chancellor, the Home Secretary, the Health Secretary, the Social Security Secretary, and officials from their departments have all been involved in the discussions. The idea that it is just pressure groups is rubbish,” he said.The changes proposed were not altering the law, but clarifying it, or giving a simpler remedy where the existing one was too slow or expensive.However, he welcomed the debate that the Mail had provoked “These are difficult issues.

“However, on a procedural point the judge said it was open to the Rev Moon to make further representations to the Home Office, which we would consider.”. STEPHEN WARD

Legal Affairs Correspondent
The head of the Government’s legal advisers yesterday strongly defended divorce, domestic violence, and right-to-die reforms against criticism by Tory backbenchers.Alerted by a virulent campaign in the Daily Mail, the MPs have criticised the independent Law Commissioners for what they see as peddling a hidden agenda of liberal values behind the backs of Parliament.In the the latest phase of the campaign, the Mail attacked proposals from the commissioners in a 250-page report published in March which recommended patients should be able to make “living wills” that instruct doctors that they should not be kept alive if they become mentally incapable, or should be able to appoint a relative or lawyer to decide if they are unable to decide for themselves.Mr Justice Brooke, a High Court judge coming to the end of his three- year term as chairman of the Law Commissioners, pointed out that every conceivable interested group had been involved in five years of discussions before the report was published in March.More than 40 groups, including critics, took part in working parties, and more than 100 organisations and experts responded to consultation papers “Nobody who conceivably might have responded is missing. Permission to visit was granted him again in December 1991 and July 1992, but he took no advantage of either offer.A Home Office spokeswoman said yesterday afternoon that the Home Secretary’s refusal of entry clearance still stood. In the Eighties, he served 11 months in an American jail for tax evasion. However, research quoted in the Home Office’s own guide to new religious movements shows that few of the young people attracted to the cult actually join it; and of those who do, over 90 per cent leave within two years.Mr Moon was first excluded from this country in 1978, when he was refused permission to extend his eighth visit here. Some 750,000 people around the world attended the last such ceremonies, according to a spokesman for the church, George Robertson.