Author Archives: Dinti Batstone

Opinion: “I don’t like them, you don’t like them… We have to have them”

By Dinti Batstone | Published 14th September 2011 - 9:25 am

This Saturday, Conference has the opportunity to show that Liberal Democrats are genuinely committed to achieving gender balance in our own distinctively liberal and democratic way.

Conference will debate an amendment which Jo Shaw and I have put forward to Mark Pack and Paul Tyler’s Lords reform motion. Our amendment builds on the approach taken by our party in the late 1990s, when one-off zipping was used to deliver a gender-balanced cohort of Lib Dem MEPs in the first PR elections to the European Parliament.

In an ideal world we wouldn’t need these kinds of measures. But with just 12% women …

Posted in Conference, Op-eds | Tagged campaign for gender balance, claire tyler, constitutional reform, equalities, gender balance, house of lords, jo shaw, lords reform, lynne featherstone, mark pack, paul tyler | 14 Comments

Dinti Batstone writes… If not now, when?

By Dinti Batstone | Published 17th May 2011 - 5:27 pm

Notice anything about this 5-minute BBC report on House of Lords reform? While it talks of ‘revolution in the air’, every interviewee is a white middle aged man.

Yet House of Lords reform could – if the Coalition chooses to make it so – prove a game-changing opportunity to promote the cause of gender balance at Westminster.

Our Commons party consists of just 12% women and the Commons as a whole barely 22%. The reasons for this are complex and different in each party, but electoral volatility and a leaky pipeline of female candidates are two major factors for the Liberal …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged all-women shortlists, campaign for gender balance, constitutional reform, equalities, gender balance, house of lords, lords reform | 13 Comments

Dinti Batstone writes: diversity opportunity at #ldconf

By Dinti Batstone | Published 10th March 2011 - 6:30 pm

This weekend in Sheffield, Liberal Democrats will be debating important internal steps to ensure that by 2015 our parliamentary party in the House of Commons better reflects the diversity of modern Britain.

In the coming months, with the Draft Bill on House of Lords reform, Liberal Democrats will also have a key external opportunity to kickstart culture change at Westminster.

Here’s why we need to grasp that opportunity:

§ Diversity is part of the solution to our broken politics. Diversity is good not just for under-represented groups and parties who want their …

Posted in Conference | Tagged diversity, equalities, zipping | 9 Comments

Dinti Batstone writes: Cheap shots at multiculturalism generate more heat than light

By Dinti Batstone | Published 11th February 2011 - 3:53 pm

Last Thursday, generations of Chinese in Soho welcomed the Year of the Rabbit in time-honoured traditional ways. Yet we didn’t hear David Cameron demonise Chinatown as a ‘segregated community’ living ‘apart from the mainstream’. On the contrary, the annual lion dance spectacle has become an essential fixture in London’s calendar, enjoyed by people from many different cultures.

The Oxford dictionary defines multicultural(ism) as “of or relating to or constituting several cultural or ethnic groups within a society”. Note the word “within”. Yet there’s a growing tendency to rubbish multiculturalism, treating it as synonymous with the failed Labour policies referred …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged hijab, multiculturalism, toddlers | 14 Comments

Have your say – diversity opportunities in political reform

By Dinti Batstone | Published 23rd October 2010 - 11:25 am

In the wider debate around BAME issues in Liverpool, one aspect of the Diversity Motion seems to have slipped through largely unnoticed. The motion, as amended, called for the Federal Executive to commission a review into “structural” barriers to participation in politics faced by under-represented groups.

As the drafter of this part of the motion, my thinking was simple. With Nick Clegg as Deputy Prime Minister in charge of political reform, Liberal Democrats have a once in a generation opportunity to change the way we do politics- and widen the political talent pool.

Because the case for diversity is not just about equality …

Posted in Op-eds | 8 Comments

Opinion: a brief history of MP job-shares… and why we need them

By Dinti Batstone | Published 12th September 2010 - 6:28 pm

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. So when I heard Caroline Lucas trumpet MP job-shares on Friday morning, part of me was delighted. But the suggestion that political job-shares are a radical new idea from the Greens had me spluttering into my Lady Grey.

For the record, here’s a brief history of Liberal Democrats advocating MP job-shares:

Nick Clegg on Mumsnet in January

Baronesses Ros Scott and Kate Parminter in a Lords debate on 21 July

…and yours truly in a speech to party Conference 2009, on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour in February, on Lib …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged equalities | 27 Comments

Political Reform: the dragons’ den

By Dinti Batstone | Published 11th September 2010 - 1:07 pm

Come and pitch your idea for political reform to our “dragons’ den” style panelists, Lynne Featherstone MP, Baroness Ros Scott and Alice Delemare (Electoral Reform Society), moderated by Katie Razzall from Channel 4 News.

This fringe event is at 1-2pm on Wednesday, 22nd September at ACC Liverpool , Hall 11C.

In the coming year we have a once in a generation opportunity to change politics for good: getting rid of the first past the post system and reforming the House of Lords. With Nick Clegg in charge of political reform, Liberal Democrats have a unique opportunity to shape the reform …

Posted in Conference | Tagged electoral reform | 1 Comment

Opinion: Make politics fit women’s lives, not vice-versa

By Dinti Batstone | Published 12th March 2010 - 1:50 pm

For today’s women “motherhood, not sexism, is the issue”. So says The Economist (“We Did It”, 30 December 2009), noting that “women who prosper in high-pressure companies in their 20s drop out in dramatic numbers in their 30s and then find it almost impossible to regain earlier momentum”.

Could the same be true in politics?

Nearly 80% of current male Lib Dem MPs first entered Parliament in their 30s and 40s. Yet our female MPs were overwhelmingly elected in their 20s or 50s, and not one was first elected while raising young children. Achieving the same age spread as the men could …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged azita qadri, campaign for gender balance, catherine bearder, female candidates, jo swinson, sharon bowles | 9 Comments

Opinion: Mind the Gender Gap!

By Dinti Batstone | Published 27th September 2007 - 7:55 pm

Surprisingly, fewer women (18%) than men (21%) support the LibDems, while for both Labour and the Tories the opposite is true.

Why?

Perhaps an explanation lies in Ming’s remark in Brighton last week that “we can’t represent a country if we’re not representative of it”.

School-gate mums and working parents are an important demographic, but not one of our parliamentarians is a mother of young children. It’s hard to show we empathise with family issues when women juggling politics and family life are all but invisible in the Lib Dems.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged female candidates | 16 Comments

Author Archives: Dinti Batstone

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