Message from Lee Chalmers

[Lee Chalmers]

Hello DSP supporters.

It's about time that you had a bit of an update from The Downing Street Project. After much soul searching and discussion with loved ones, I have decided to move on from the Downing Street Project and leave it in the capable hands of Indra Adnan.

I had the initial idea for DSP two years ago, inspired by the White House Project, to train women to run for public office in the UK as that is what I believed was the best intervention to increase the number of female MP's. As I've hung out in the world of UK politics I've realised that more work needs to be done on the political system itself before women can truly flourish as MPs in large numbers. My thinking is now that we need to work with the entire culture in order to have it recognise the value of women and not run training programmes just for women. Women don't need fixing. I believe that we need an system wide intervention like the ones taking place in business, in the world of politics.

So it is with great thanks and appreciation to all the people that have supported the vision of the DSP over the last two years that I move on to pursue skills that will enable me to intervene at a system level. Your help and support and effort really brought the idea of balanced leadership into the public domain and created the groundwork for what is to come. Thank you so much. I will still be personally involved in politics, working closely with the Liberal Democrats, hopefully on their Campaign for Gender Balance, to increase their female representation. I will also be continuing my work on leadership development, through my company Authentic Living.

I also hope to soon be able to do some practical leadership work with women leaders running local projects in London. The purpose of which is to develop role models of womens leadership, through projects impacting local communities, giving young people a real understanding that a 'leader' need not just be a white male. I've started a new blog where I will be continuing to write about women and politics so please do check it out. www.leechalmers.com

I'm very happy and excited that Indra is taking the DSP forward: she has a lot of new ideas about how to further the work for balanced leadership which will be unveiled over the next few weeks. I am sure that she and the people around her, will do great work. Watch this space.