Last week a hugely significant and historic debate took place in Scotland when the Parliament got round to finally discussing domestic violence against men. As highlighted in the discussions it's quite shameful that it took 11 years after the initial Liberal Democrat proposal to actually have the debate, particularly given that debating "violence against women" is quite literally an annual event.The debate itself makes fascinating viewing and a number of those taking part really should be commended for their knowledge of the issues and determination to expose the truth with particular credit going to Mike Rumbles of the Lib Dems. The most positive aspect of the proceedings was the recognition of how badly the Scottish Parliament was failing male victims. It was noted that the Scottish Executive had spent some £100 million helping females victims, compared to £28,000 on men. Feminists moan about all sorts of inequalities such as supposed discrimination in pay, yet even with their skills at fiddling the figures I doubt they can find any area where the disparity in government spending between the sexes amounts to more than 350,000%. As noted in the debate, such a lack of funding means there's no actual helpline based in Scotland for men, and further still no services that victims can be referred to one they call the helpline. It's akin to setting up a "999" call centre but neglecting to employ any fireman, police or paramedics.Another positive side of the debate was the recognition that abuse takes many forms, with one of the more serious being women denying fathers access to their children. It was also mentioned how young men suffer more abuse than any other group and there was a promise to investigate the disparity between the reported number of male victim in surveys compared with the actual of them feeling able to report the matter to the police. Similarly it was acknowledged that most domestic violence against men is of course committed by women.An interesting aspect of the debate was the quite disgraceful conduct of the MSPs from the Labour Party with the event exposing their incredibly backward and one-sided approach to the issue (though it was refreshing to see the rapidly growing gap between their sexist views and those of almost every other party). First of all we got to hear from Johann Lamont, who sought to add an amendment to the proposed motion stating ""that overwhelmingly victims are women". Fortunately MSPs from other parties were on hand to remind Ms Lamont of the work of Parity and the excellent Statistics Authority who had already taken numerous government departments to task for using such a dishonest and inaccurate statement which downplayed the large proportion of domestic violence victims which were men. Ms Lamont wasn't finished there either, her next attack on male victims of domestic violence was to suggest that many male victims were lying, and further still were in fact perpetrators of domestic violence themselves! Now I don't' doubt that some men lie on this issue, but given that the police invariably take the woman's side who exactly is in the best position to make false allegations of abuse? Lamont will no doubt have been aware of the gender feminist Labour colleagues telling us how female rape victims will supposedly not be believed if anonymity was introduced, yet here we've got an elected official herself denying men's suffering and accusing genuine victims of not only making it up but actually being guilty of the offence themselves! Further still, it emerged she had repeated such an accusation on a radio broadcast earlier that morning too! Lamont also exposed her contempt for the facts in other dishonest statements about men and children, even repeating the discredited and disgusting assertion that "Paedophilia is almost exclusive to men" whilst also downplaying the amount of violence women commit against children.Of course Labour can't pretend all male domestic violence perpetrators are liars or even the actual perpetrators of such offences, and they did begrudgingly acknowledge the existence of male victims with Bill butler significantly involved in the debate. So what was his attitude to these people faced with begin in such a desperate situation? Did he perhaps propose more funding, or setting up an actual helpline in Scotland itself, an advertising campaign or maybe even a shelter? No, Mr Butler instead sought to excuse women's violence against men. He told us how "When women use violence in intimate relationships it is often, though not always, in self defence or defence of a child or as a form of resistance." When Labour politicians talk about violence against women they always tell us you should "never hit a woman" and "there's no excuse for abuse" yet here was a Labour MSP justifying the abuse of men and even blaming the victim suggesting they are child abusers or a person who somehow need "resisting" whatever that means. His views were branded as "shameful" by the Liberal Democrats and quite rightly so.My one criticism of the event is the failure to recognise the harmful anti-male agenda of the Men's Advice Line, the organisation receiving the £28,000. The group behind "service" is unapologetically gender feminist in it's outlook and mainly concerned with male perpetrators and female victims. There was some recognition of the fact that the helpline scheme hadn't gone out to tender with the Sottish Executive had only considering the Men's Advice Line or a Scottish feminist group as candidates. However, whistle quite rightly attacking the disgusting attitudes of the Labour MSPs to male victims, the politicians didn't seem to realise they were handing over money to an organisation with the exact same agenda and prejudices. When vulnerable male victims make a phone call they wouldn't be getting a genuinely sympathetic response, but instead someone with exactly the same attitudes as Johann Lamont, i.e. someone who believes that many men lie about being victims of abuse whereas women almost always tell the truth. Perhaps worse still, their words and experiences will almost certainly be twisted to suggest they were the perpetrator of the offence, with such statistics used by misandrists, even in the Scottish Parliament itself , as an excuse to deny help to men or to downplay their suffering..On a more positive note we did see a tremendous understanding of the issues, for example the quite brilliant Mike Rumbles stated "I hope that we will all see the evil of domestic abuse for what it is—an evil that is perpetrated on the weaker member of a relationship. It is not a gender issue. If we treat it as such, no progress will be made in tackling its true evil. Members should not continue with the mistake of saying that it is simply a gender issue. It is about the abuse of one person in a relationship by their partner. Once we recognise that, we might at last get on the right track and have a chance of helping all those victims who really do need our help." However, such tremendous understanding of the problem didn't merely come from the Liberal Democrats, but also from the Conservatives and even some SNP members such as Christine Grahame. She quoted a domestic violence victim who stated "I find it painful that the Scottish Government has funded a series of TV ads for Christmases highlighting the awfulness of domestic violence in which every example is of male violence against women. It hurts to see messages on buses that men are violent and women are victims. Not a hint that it can ever be the other way. I have no sympathy for men who assault a wife or partner. But I object to my own experience being disregarded." These words led to calls for a campaign or even just a single poster showing males being abused by women, though alas no action was promised.When writing the conclusions and summaries for pieces such as this I generally have to explain the problem myself and condemn the guilty parties where so many other have failed to do so, either due to a lack of understanding of the issues or a lack of interest in genuine equality. Refreshingly in this instance I can simply quote MSP Mary Scanlon who summed up the situation quite brilliantly herself:by John Kimble