Tag Archives: gender balance

Gender quotas get legal backing in Ireland

By Mark Pack | Tue 24th July 2012 - 8:50 am

Interesting news from Ireland on the long-running question of male dominance of elected Parliamentary posts:

GENDER QUOTAS are set to become law after the Electoral Amendment (Political Funding) Bill 2011 passed all stages in the Dáil yesterday.

The legislation, which has yet to be signed by the President, will halve State funding to parties unless 30 per cent of their candidates at the next general election are women. This figure will rise to 40 per cent at subsequent general elections…

Posted in Election law and News | Also tagged candidate selection rules and republic of ireland | 5 Comments

The fallout from Chris Huhne’s resignation

By Mark Pack | Sat 4th February 2012 - 6:10 pm

I’ve been busy with the media yesterday and today giving my take on Chris Huhne’s resignation, so here are the two main highlights if you missed them:

Posted in News | Also tagged chris huhne, diversity, ed davey, jenny willott, Jo Swinson and nick clegg | 2 Comments

Gender Equality and MPs – is our performance as bad as it looks?

By Mark Thompson | Tue 31st January 2012 - 11:38 am

I am very unhappy with the number of female Lib Dem MPs. 7 out of 57 is not good enough and we need to improve. The leadership programme which assists those from underrepresented groups to become candidates will hopefully help.

7/57 = 12.3%. So, less than an eighth of our MPs are women. The Conservatives have 48/307 = 15.6%, Labour 81/258 = 31.4%. Activists from the two other parties have pointed this out to me on numerous occasions. They are right to. It is embarrassing. We definitely need more female candidates. In 2010 we only had 134 (21.3%). The Conservatives had …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged candidate selection rules | 32 Comments

Lynne Featherstone MP writes… We do not just elect individuals, we elect people to be members of a team

By Lynne Featherstone MP | Wed 25th January 2012 - 11:55 am

Home Office minister Lynne Featherstone writes a monthly column for one of her local newspapers. Here is the latest edition, looking at Parliamentary representation.

Our Parliament has come a long way in recent years. In fact, watching ‘The Iron Lady’ with Margaret Thatcher sticking out like a blue female sore thumb amongst the total male greyness of the then chamber – it reminded me of how recently in history this establishment was nearly all male.

However, despite real progress, it is still nowhere near reflecting the percentage of women in the country – and that is without even starting to talk about …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged diversity, equalities and leadership programme | 5 Comments

The Lib Dem Candidates Leadership Programme – a participant’s view

By Layla Moran | Mon 16th January 2012 - 2:54 pm

Last weekend marked the official start of the Candidate Leadership Programme, with a residential training weekend in Greenwich. For many, this Programme marks an important shift in thinking to improve the diversity of our Parliamentary Party. I write this piece to give a participant’s point of view.

Despite efforts for years to get candidates from diverse backgrounds to become approved, sadly, and not without great effort on behalf of organisations such as the Campaign for Gender Balance (CGB), the result did not show in terms of elected Parliamentarians.

The Leadership Programme is designed to focus on the steps post-approval and selection, to …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged diversity, equalities and leadership programme | 44 Comments

Opinion: Why the Lib Dems need all-women shortlists

By Nat Jester | Fri 14th October 2011 - 2:48 pm

In his Lib Dem Voice piece “Too male and too pale” – Why shortlists and the Leadership Programme are not the answer, Paul Head states that he is totally opposed to all-women shortlists (AWS) because they ‘ignore the real problem’ that this reflects in the party as a whole; and that we need to engage more with women and BAME people on a grassroots level and change from below.

This is a sensible argument, and is something that we should strive for. However, I believe that there is a place for AWS in the Liberal Democrats, despite the fact that …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged all-women shortlists, diversity, equalities and paul head | 48 Comments

Opinion: None shall be enslaved by….maternity?

By Ruth Bright | Wed 12th October 2011 - 3:54 pm

Nick Clegg bemoans the maleness and paleness of the Lib Dems and his sense of shame that our parliamentary party is 88% male seems genuine enough.

What is it about the culture of Lib Dems that has brought about this striking gender imbalance?

My own experience as a councillor and candidate is that being a (young, childless, solvent) woman is a huge advantage. When I was approved and selected in 2001 you could almost smell the desperation of the party to promote women. The glass ceiling – what was that?

But then I did what women do and I had children and …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged equalities and nick clegg | 29 Comments

“All-Women Shortlists May Be Necessary, Senior Lib Dems Accept”

By Mark Pack | Mon 19th September 2011 - 10:23 pm

So reports the Huffington Post:

Senior Liberal Democrats have accepted that the party may need to resort to all-female shortlists or other tough measures to increase the representation of women and minority groups among its MPs…

Tim Farron MP … said that he was “utterly embarrassed” that only seven of the party’s MPs were women.

He said:

“Over the years we’ve had several debates on the crushing lack of women in the House of Commons, and our zero lack of representation from black and ethnic minority communities, and the debates we’ve always had are about the practical way to create equality and the

…

Posted in Conference | Also tagged all-women shortlists, equalities, paddy ashdown and tim farron | 20 Comments

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

By Dinti Batstone | Wed 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 and Op-eds | Also tagged campaign for gender balance, claire tyler, constitutional reform, equalities, house of lords, jo shaw, lords reform, lynne featherstone, Mark Pack and paul tyler | 14 Comments

Dinti Batstone writes… If not now, when?

By Dinti Batstone | Tue 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 | Also tagged all-women shortlists, campaign for gender balance, constitutional reform, equalities, house of lords and lords reform | 13 Comments

Baroness Kate Parminter’s maiden speech

By Kathryn Parminter | Thu 22nd July 2010 - 7:40 pm

In recent weeks, LDV has been bringing its readers copies of our new MPs’ first words in the House of Commons, so that we can read what is being said and respond. You can find all of the speeches in this category with this link. Today’s guest editor Mark Valladares feels that it was only right that the same honour should be offered to new Peers, and today we bring you the words of Baroness Parminter of Godalming.

Baroness Parminter: I add my thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, for initiating this debate today. As a new girl, …

Posted in Parliament | Also tagged acevo, carey oppenheim, equal pay act, equalities, godalming, guest editor, house of lords, ippr, jobshare, kathryn parminter, lisa harker and maiden | 3 Comments

Social mobility: is the Coalition doing enough to encourage it?

Stephen Tall asks: "Did Nate Silver write in vain?"

Nick Clegg: "Of course the EU has to change"

"Mad, swivel-eyed loons": a top Tory on the Tories

Tag Archives: gender balance

Gender quotas get legal backing in Ireland

The fallout from Chris Huhne’s resignation

Gender Equality and MPs – is our performance as bad as it looks?

Lynne Featherstone MP writes… We do not just elect individuals, we elect people to be members of a team

The Lib Dem Candidates Leadership Programme – a participant’s view

Opinion: Why the Lib Dems need all-women shortlists

Opinion: None shall be enslaved by….maternity?

“All-Women Shortlists May Be Necessary, Senior Lib Dems Accept”

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

Dinti Batstone writes… If not now, when?

Baroness Kate Parminter’s maiden speech

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Social mobility: is the Coalition doing enough to encourage it?

Stephen Tall asks: "Did Nate Silver write in vain?"

Nick Clegg: "Of course the EU has to change"

"Mad, swivel-eyed loons": a top Tory on the Tories

Tag Archives: gender balance

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