Appearing on BBC3’s “Free speech” Nick Clegg said Westminster is a “ludicrously clapped out place” which, on Wednesdays at lunch time, resembles “Downton Abbey gone a bit loopy”. He also said he favoured a “one off” measure to increase the number of Liberal Democrat women candidates:
I’ve come to the view that if we don’t make real progress in having more women elected as Liberal Democrat MPs at the next election, we might have to have think of a one-off way of cracking this problem and reserving some places for women in future.
You can see the full programme here on BBC iPlayer.
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27 Comments
“He also said he favoured a “one off” measure to increase the number of Liberal Democrat women candidates”
If he really cared he would have taken action years ago.
I clearly recall that Nick had promised to do something similar to ensure the Party improved our chances of getting BAME MPs elected if we remained a BAME MP free Party in 2010
But action we saw none
“Downton Abbey gone a bit loopy”.
As so often it is a throw away remark that reveals the actual belief system.
Some would regard the whole social set up portrayed in Downton Abbey as more than a bit loopy.
This remark pre- supposes that everything in the world of Downton Abbey is fine and dandy unless it has “gone a bit loopy.”
No wonder that the minister with personal responsibility in this government for reform of the constitution and specifically the House of Lords made such a pig’s ear of it.
Decades on from that other popular TV series ‘Upstairs, Downstairs’– those of us who are downstairs have not seen much change in the attitudes of those who were born upstairs. They cannot really understand why we are not that keen on what they see as the natural order of things (just so long as it does not go “a bit loopy”) .
All local parties should be able to select the best person regardless of gender. Full stop. Anything else is discrimination.
@Rabi
“I clearly recall that Nick had promised to do something similar to ensure the Party improved our chances of getting BAME MPs elected if we remained a BAME MP free Party in 2010
But action we saw none!”
You mean apart from Maajid in Hampstead and Kilburn, Ibraham Taguri in Brent Central, Layla Moran in OXWAB and (until she resigned as PPC) Sarah Yong in Somerton and Frome.
Yeah Rabi, I’m afraid Simon M beat me to that comment.
It’s not enough, but saying there was no action isn’t really fair.
The best thing Nick could have done to “ensure the Party improved our chances of getting BAME MPs elected if we remained a BAME MP free Party in 2010” or women MPs or working class MPs, would be to have not made such a mess of being in coalition, listened to the party and not made himself look so comfortable as David’s little helper. Gestures like this are too late, much, much too late. Sadly Maajid in Hampstead and Kilburn, Ibraham in Brent Central, Layla in OXWAB are in with no chance, as are many of our sitting MPs. Saying anything else is just a comfort blanket for failure.
@Simon
Last time I looked at the Lib Dem Group I just saw a sea of white faces
Hope your optimism is well placed for 2015
I will eat humble pie if there is a Black or Asian Lib Dem MP come May 8 2015
I don’t agree with this discriminatory attitude.
But even if I did, it makes no sense when the Party is facing an electoral meltdown in May – the Lib Dems will be lucky to get MPs, full-stop.
What Clegg is saying is the same as what other parties have done. Right or wrong, there is no question that zipping and reserved places works. I personally don’t agree with it, but it will get results assuming other factors don’t come into play.
These sorts of debate are why there’s no confidence in the political system and why the likes of Ukip are on the rise.
It’s the inevitable consequence of our electoral system that membership of the HoC does not reflect the demographics of the country as a whole. It’s arrogant of a political party to determine that a constituency must be represented by a person with particular characteristics. Notably, it was the most arrogant of all political parties (New Labour) which adopted this approach to the greatest extent. (The zipping of candidates for the European Parliament is completely different as voters elect parties not individuals – in itself demonstrating the paucity of that particular system.)
That such an approach won’t work for the Lib Dems (very few safe seats and any edicts from London/Edinburgh in the ones we have will backfire) is irrelevant. We should be campaigning to change the system not prop it up from the insides.
“I’ve come to the view that if we don’t make real progress in having more women elected as Liberal Democrat MPs at the next election, …” — was there ever a more pointless if-clause? I suppose they could concentrate what firepower can be mustered on defending current women MPs’ seats over the men’s (though I don’t suppose they will). Does anyone expect there to be any new LibDem MPs, of any gender, next May?
@Malcolm Todd – yes I do think there will be an excellent new Lib Dem woman MP. Dorothy Thornhill.
Here is a discussion which includes reference to positive discrimination.
Nobody mentions the very real positive discrimination that enabled Nick Clegg to move very rapidly from ski-instructor to leader of the Liberal Democrats.
He first joined the party, according to the Jasper Gerrard book, around the time that Leon Brittan wrote to Paddy Ashdown saying that Clegg had for some strange reason decided he was a Liberal not a Conservative. That would be shortly before becoming an MEP, just about seven years before becoming party leader.
Positive discrimination was OK for this white boy.
Now he tells us he thinks — “…we might have to have think of a one-off way of cracking this problem and reserving some places for women in future.”
Well he could always ask Leon Brittan to write a letter for each of them. That seemed to do the trick in his case.
Paul in Wokingham
Fair point — if anyone can gain a seat for the party, it’s probably Dorothy Thornhill. (What is her secret?) But to be honest, I doubt even she can overcome the party’s toxic brand in a general election. Time will tell.
“Malcolm Todd :
” Does anyone expect there to be any new LibDem MPs, of any gender, next May?”
I think that Dorothy Thornhill stands a chance in Watford. For the rest, Mr Clegg is doing his normal Clotheless Emperor thing: suggesting new ways of playing music in the Titanic ballroom. He has done more to ewnsure that dozens of good Lib Dem women never get elected than any measure he proposes will ever counteract.
I hope people read this message. I am not against hierarchies of inequality, such as the idea gender representation might be the most important, but there is no excuse to elevate one form of inequality so much higher than all the rest.
People then mention things such as race, disability and sexuality, but class, one of the most important inequalities, gets ignored. For experienced people, this can only be due to selfishness, because nobody can believe it doesn’t matter.
I have a lot of work to do, but I feel I can’t ignore this article because people will think that I am giving up on the issue, so I think hard how to best make a polite comment on it. However, the time it takes for me to word the comment makes me stressed about the work that I need to be doing. This fills my heart with resentment. A horrible thing, that nobody wants, but it is what happens when people feel they are getting distracted from their work by others for no good reason.
People should never turn this resentment into aggression, so I just use it to cut ties with people instead. The resentment doesn’t go, but a politically correct way to let someone know how you feel is to simply cut friendships with them. That is what I do to people who repeatedly fail to engage constructively with others on this topic.
I have just tried very hard to make a polite comment on this topic, but I think I failed. I am sorry if I have.
Best wishes
Clegg is also part of the reason why I’m now looking for an independent to vote for. I don’t like it when men get to the top and then try to pull up the ladder by talking about all women short lists. Anyone promoting these should allow a woman to contest their job, otherwise it’s just men saying whatever they can to cling onto power.
Sadly this misses the point, it appears there is not sufficient funds to do something that would actually help. Reserved funds for candidates from underrepresented groups, more open primaries when they would be able to stand (as that gives them a head start for a GE). It does mirror Malcolm Todds point resources could be weighted on defending women MPs over male ones (given the relative imbalance the cost may not be that high). Are certain senior men willing to have that happen?
JohnTilly
“That would be shortly before becoming an MEP, just about seven years before becoming party leader.”
That suggests that it was the case for the selection as an MEP but no one could write him a letter to become leader, if your concern about his election I suggest it would be more of a problem of the pool of candidates, which in turn represents the pool of MPs.
Eddie
“but class, one of the most important inequalities, gets ignored”
I agree, unfortunately it is because it is becoming increasingly hard to identify class (except at the extreme). There are a number of fake “working class” types and there are those who are not in roles that now have taken the place of certain working class jobs but are seen as middle class (teaching assistants, junior admin/accounting staff in businesses, council admin staff, supervisors in retail). We are obsessed with a historic image of coal miners and heavy manual work in large low-tech industry.
Some people would suggest that we look at people’s jobs held when they were selected. The children of millionaires could quit jobs in banking to work at a local charity two years before being selected. It is hard to identify who would really be “working class” as such effort would be made to fake credentials.
People who understand struggle and the uncertainty of everyday life, who have not face an effortless escalator through their life are easier to spot. I agree with the sentiment but think it is a harder nut to crack than it initially appears.
One thing that can be identified is more candidates who have not spent the majority of their working life working for parties (including being special advisors).
Thanks Psi.
I wonder whether residence could be used as a surrogate for class? If candidates were required to have been resident (i.e. on the electoral register) in the constituency they’re standing in or a neighbouring constituency for five years prior to selection, that would militate against ‘carpet-baggers’, London-based party workers seeking safe seats and so on; and I think there’s probably a strong correlation between social/economic class and geographical mobility. (That’s purely anecdotal, though — I wonder if there’s research to support it.) It also, of course, plays to the popular idea that candidates should be “local”, without pandering to the Blut und Boden nonsense that sometimes follows.
Thoughts?
Malcolm Todd — it is generally accepted that a good marker of social class is schooling.
Prep school followed by Eton or Westminster, or any other “public” school, in more than 99% of cases indicates that your mum and dad were not stacking shelves at Tescos on a zero hours contract.
The mistake that women candidates in our party make is not going to Eton or Westminster for their schooling.
What were they thinking?. How can they expect anyone to take them seriously as a politician if they made such a foolish choice as to go to a state school?
John Tilley — yes, to a point that’s obviously true. However, the class structure is much more complicated than whether you went to private school or not (I went to a ‘bog-standard’ comprehensive near Glasgow, but I’d never claim working class roots). Mind you, perhaps we could have a sort of inverse quota system: a maximum proportion of privately educated candidates? That would create a nice cat-and-pigeons dance in motion.
Malcolm Todd
John Tilley — yes, to a point that’s obviously true. However, the class structure is much more complicated than whether you went to private school or no
Well, yes, but I suspect that John Tilley is aware of that.
In the south of England where I come from, if you speak with what northerners (wrongly) often call a “southern accent”, you are near the top of the class spectrum, if you speak with what northerners (wrongly) often call a “Cockney accent”, you are in the middle or at the lower end, depending on how far your accent is real southern rather than “Received Pronunciation”. Because of this misassumption that “Received Pronunciation” or “BBC English” or whatever is “southern English”, even though perhaps only about 10% of the population in the south speak like that, the way that most southerners speak is just dismissed as bad or sloppy English. It is almost never heard in public life. I cannot think of a single politician who has a strong real southern accent.
If you have the accent and demeanour and confidence of those at the top end of the class scale, you are perceived as much more intelligent and able than people lower down. This is an unconscious thing, people are often not even aware they are doing it. So, for example, someone who has particularly strongly the accent, demeanour and confidence of the top end of the scale will just get written up as “obviously the next person to be leader”, “a great communicator” and so on, even if the reality is that they are completely incompetent.If you have a hint of a working class accent, forget it, you will always be judged as someone whose role it is to do the donkey work, “salt of the earth” or some other patronising phrase maybe, but underneath assumed to be a bit thick really.
Personally I am all for the rules to be changed to allow this positive move toward equity, for evolution has failed to eradicate the unnecessary barriers that exist to the recruitment, retention and progression of women within our Party, so revolution is a necessity.
Ruwan Uduwerage-Perera
Liberal Democrat English Party Diversity Champion
Ethnic Minority Liberal Democrat (EMLD) – Vice Chair