Last year, I ran for Party President on a platform of party reform, with a focus on diversity. Now that all eight of our remaining MPs are white, middle-aged, middle class men, that reform agenda is even more important than before.
I’m asking both declared leadership candidates – Tim Farron and Norman Lamb – whether and to what extent they will commit to these achievable measures.
1. Will you promise to take a zero tolerance approach to inappropriate behaviour, insisting that all elected representatives and everyone in your team has a “responsibility to act” on any and all anecdotal and substantive evidence that reaches them?
2. Will you promise to appoint at least one recognised senior Disability Activist, as a spokesperson for the party (possibly as a Peer)? This person may well be required to speak out against Tory cuts that could impact disproportionately on disabled people.
3. Will you promise to support a motion to Conference to ring-fence money to support the election of at least one BAME candidate to Parliament in 2020, or similar ideas towards the same goal?
4. Will you insist that creating accountability for decision-making is a guiding principle of any review into the structure of the party?
5. Will you promise to support efforts to create an leadership scheme that includes people with a wider range of lived experience, drawing on the scheme run by our South African sister party, the Democratic Alliance?
6. Will you promise to support a scheme of financial incentives for local parties to select candidates from under-represented groups, and efforts to ear-mark financial support for candidates from low-income backgrounds?
7. Will you promise to only appoint new Peers from the party’s Peers panel list as elected by the party membership?
Daisy is a member of the Party’s Diversity Engagement Group; she has written this blog in a personal capacity.
* Daisy Cooper is the Liberal Democrat MP for St Albans.
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
Weekly Road Report - West End Ward #dundeewestend
Care homes under threat after Labour policy change
Three less conventional ways of looking at who supports Reform - The Week in Polls
Layla Moran on Gaza: "Starvation shouldn't be a weapon of war"
Daniel Stylianou
Simon R
John Waller
Mick Taylor
Tristan Ward
58 Comments
Well stated. I would just add that we should no longer tolerate paid lobbyists sitting on our benches in the Lords. Donnachadh McCarthy was right all those years ago and we have done nothing about it. If we are to have a future as a party our actions must in future be contingent with our values and principles.
Number 7 is vital to demonstrate leadership respect for internal party democracy. Some of the others are not quite SMART though…
This is an excellent article and I wholly endorse this approach. Thankyou Daisy.
Some good ideas but some of them not really thought through.
A responsibility to act on anecdotal evidence? You mean every piece of gossip should trigger a party enquiry ?
Financial incentives to select candidates from under represented groups. You mean we would say to local parties ‘if you select X we will give you £Y a year whereas if you select Z we won’t’. Goodness you really don’t know Lib Dems if you don’t realise that this will be most likely to help Z.
Only appointing peers from the Interim List – this would vastly decrease diversity (in the broadest sense) as it would favour party hacks and mean that people whose had jobs that meant they could not be publicly associated with a political party – for example Lord McDonald , former DPP could not be selected.
This is good stuff. My ideal list would only be slightly different, so I don’t want to nit pick.
The income backgrounds part is important and often overlooked. Many of the cuts are falling on the poorest. I would also include academic diversity.
However overall it is good stuff. We need more women and BAME MPs, but also fewer from well off backgrounds. I’m not after perfection, because overall I don’t like a lot of positive discrimination, but clearly something needs to be done.
I agree Eddie.
Labour and the Tories have a more diverse front bench than a few years ago but for Labour the number coming from a blue collar background has fallen.
I believe that is the case in parliament overall.
The Lib Dems need more people who have worked in low paid jobs.
I think in principle this list is a good idea, however I agree with Simon that some of the points may need tweeting to make them work in a fair and realistic way. We have an opportunity to rebuild the party from the ground up so I thank you for this list – definitely food for thought.
*Tweeking
As a new lib dem member,trade union member and local council binman,it is reassuring that our party is constantly striving for greater equality.
The greatest advantages which the “metropolitan elite” possesses are confidence and contacts.
We have to believe in ourselves.
Keep going 😊
I agree with Simon that the financial incentive to select members of under-represented groups needs more thought. As we select candidates on a one-member one-vote basis, a financial incentive to the party is unlikely to cut much ice with the members.
However I do agree with Eddie about help for those on low incomes. I recall a prominent party person saying how she took unpaid leave to be a full-time candidate in a recent election. Jolly good for her, but not exactly practical for those without a financial cushion. Given the intensity and length of the last campaign, I would be interested to know how any of our candidates in target seats and full-time employment managed.
tonyhill 17th May ’15 – 9:15am
“… we should no longer tolerate paid lobbyists sitting on our benches in the Lords. Donnachadh McCarthy was right all those years ago and we have done nothing about it. ”
Yes we had the farce under the last leadership of Jenny Tonge being forced out of the Liberal Democrat Group in the Lords for the “crime” of supporting Liberal Democrat policies and values whilst people were appointed having followed the recognised route that David Steel describes as “donating their way” into the Lords.
Both candidates in this election sould make a very clear, no wriggle-room, statement about The Lords and future nominations.
@Simon McGrath
I Agree
We can ring-fence money for BAME candidates; for disabled candidates; for state educated candidates; for non-university educated candidates; for female candidates; for single parent candidates; for gay and bisexual candidates; for youth candidates; for elderly candidates; and so on. All of these are worthy objectives, and all divert money from we should actually be doing: working to become a effective political force.
@David Cooper
If you think the way to become an effective political force isn’t dependent on us moving away from the white, middle class, male dominated party we are at the moment then you’re advocating the path that leads to failure.
A responsibility to act on “ALL”…”ANECDOTAL”…”EVIDENCE”. ?!!!
So the forces behind the Pendle witch trials are alive and well and at the heart of the Liberal Democrats.
Chris Davies, you don’t have to decide that every rumour you hear is true. You do have to listen to it and make a serious effort to find out whether or not it is true.
@Chris Davies
Surely that doesn’t mean to act on all uncorroborated anecdotal evidence? If it does, I would agree with you. But I took it to mean ‘not automatically discarding evidence just because it is anecdotal’. Clarification, perhaps?
‘Middle class’ candidates are there, usually because they have relevant and useful experience – in business, law, education, health etc. Do we want to discourage such people? Or are we saying that we want people who have experience of ‘middle class’ jobs, but who are from working class families?
I do think that diversity is a good thing as it is prevents groupthink. However I think that diversity among members and supporters – who select candidates best able to serve us all – is as important as diversity among candidates.
If a privately educated upper-middle class white man is the best person to argue the case for liberalism, wouldn’t we want him as a leader? The new Tory cabinet is full of state educated candidates, women and ethnic minorities – it is at the same time very right wing and almost certain to act against the interests of the state educated, women and ethnic minorities.
I feel that diversity will come in time, and that the most important thing is to find people who want to represent us all, no matter what their own background is. I don’t think you need to be just like someone to represent them. You need to be open minded and have that key liberal trait – a willingness to put yourself in another person’s shoes.
@George Potter
We must be careful to spend our limited money on effective campaigning activities, not on gestures that make us feel morally superior. I’m not saying that you can’t sometimes have both, but spending our money at candidate selection based on identity politics sounds like the latter.
The expression “responsibility to act on any and all anecdotal … evidence” does sound bad, but it can of course mean, do a bit of background digging to see if anything turns up that makes further investigation worthwhile. I remember when I worked in Internal Audit, and for some reason or other, I just felt the need to ask “John, is there anything else you think I need to know about?” It opened the floodgates – nothing to do with harassment but it just shows, if you give people the chance something important may come up.
ADWilliams 17th May ’15 – 4:35pm
“…If a privately educated upper-middle class white man is the best person to argue the case for liberalism, wouldn’t we want him as a leader? ”
A rhetorical question like this in May 2015 is taking irony a bit too far.
We have just had seven and a half years of a privately educated, upper-middle class, white man leading the party.
Did you see the results?
John Tilley cracks me up again. Indeed, what about the upper middle class white men in the Liberal Democrats in May 2015?
In all seriousness: ability is the main thing, but the current state of affairs suggests there has been some discrimination the other way, so this would be balancing it up.
When it comes to the responsibility to act: we need to be careful about being too harsh, but there needs to be a culture change so accusations of inappropriate behaviour are dealt with properly. The Lib Dems and the Liberal Party before it have had questions to answer in this area and in some ways still have.
John Tilley:
It wasn’t a rhetorical question, but a question. What do you think?
The result: 5 years in government followed by a disastrous election result which says more about our electoral system than it does about the party and its record.
Unless you think Clegg’s background is directly related to the election result (i.e. Only such a person would enter into coalition with the conservatives, when the actual conservative cabinet is now quite diverse?), then I fail to see what you are getting at!
Great post Daisy. No changes from me. I’d be interested to hear responses from our party leadership candidates next.
I am a BAME disabled member who stood for council a year ago against the Tories. I do work full time but long hours with longer travelling on low pay. If the party received funding for certain candidates standing, I am not sure how it was used for us in particular. Perhaps they should tell us. It didn’t help me personally as far as I know. I would have appreciated support that allowed me to work part time and campaign and canvas more. Against opposition who don’t all work it’s not easy. Late nights, fast food, zero rest and chores in what little time is spent at home not relaxing. Having done the FWMP course, I realised that I haven’t got the essential support network for a successful campaign. It’s harder attending events on days off around the country when you have a disability that means you can’t drive and not enough time or money to do it by public transport.
ADWilliams 17th May ’15 – 5:35pm
Let me try and spell it out.
In this general election a state educated, working-class, tartan woman was the leader of a party which won 56 of the 59 seats her party was standing in.
Not only has she been “in government” for the last five years she is actually the First Minster of her country in that government. She fought this general election under the same system as our party.
Some people might think that you are scratching around for excuses for privately educated, upper-middle class white male losers like Labour’s Mr Murphy
@JohnTilley …”Did you see the results?”
If results are what you go by, then we should choose an old Etonian as our leader.
Only upper-middle class white men get away with the serial incompetence that has characterised the Clegg era. Anyone from a less privileged background would have been ousted long ago.
JohnTilley
“Some people might think that you are scratching around for excuses for privately educated, upper-middle class white male losers like Labour’s Mr Murphy.”
Not really in the spirit in which I, anyway, look to go proceed with these discussions.
Did Nicola sturgeon win because of her gender and class, or because of her talents as a politician and her promising the world to a fairly narrowly defined electorate?
As DavidCooper said, the real victor was an old Etonian!
The question I want to raise is this: do we think that the background of our leader is more important than that person’s ability to get our cause across?
Furthermore, do we think that a certain background is critical in getting out message across?
And John
I won’t spell out how the electoral system worked differently for us and the SNP.
ADWilliams 17th May ’15 – 6:41pm
“…As DavidCooper said, the real victor was an old Etonian!”
An Old Etonian leader who got what? 36% of the vote
The state educated girl from Glasgow got more than 50% of the vote.
These are inconvenient facts for you and David Cooper, but they are facts not vague assertions about the superiority at birth of Old Etonians.
If Old Etonians were the answer for Liberal Democrats then we would today have the MP for Somerton and Frome.
You ask — “… do we think that the background of our leader is more important than that person’s ability to get our cause across?”
My answer– it is not an either / or choice. Both are important.
For example, nobody from my background would have considered the Bedroom Tax as acceptable for a single moment. It was clearly a piece of middle class, Saloon Bar Conservative prejudice and spite elevated into a policy.
Having a leader who was a millionaire, living in a very large house in Putney, with a family ski lodge in Davos and another family home in Spain, did not exactly help getting across the message that we did not entirely like the bedroom tax.
Did you notice what happened in every single one of our seats where Labour was the principle challenger. We lost the lot!
I hope that answers your subsequent questions. I am happy to elaborate further if it would help.
Talk of positive discrimination really bothers me. We should aim to encourage those who are best suited to the job regardless of their class, race, gender etc. Is that not what liberalism is about?
John,
Scotland is far more left wing than England is. This is why Labour will never be able to win simultaneously in England and Scotland again. So your sturgeon-Cameron comparison does not work.
I’m sorry but you seem to think that I and DavidCooper have a penchant for old Etonians, whereas he simply mentioned the fact that the leader of the largest party was educated at Eton, suggesting that background is not an electoral deal breaker. I don’t see how you could interpret it as though we believed in their superiority. Unless you deliberately meant to misrepresent.
We lost many seats to the Conservatives too, and I don’t think that election analysis of this kind really helps with this issue. What happened was complicated, and cannot be reduced to ‘out leader was too posh’.
There is also the issue of what this party is about – what you are saying sounds like class prejudice. That is something which is more common among certain sections of the Labour and Conservative parties. I don’t think it helps us. Far better to have a positive message rather than label enemies, or as Clegg said, the play the politics of fear and grievance.
I also doubt our leader would have chosen to implement that policy were he prime minister. I bear no ill will against him even if his backgrounds is different from mine.
‘… privately educated, upper-middle class white male losers like Labour’s Mr Murphy.’
Are you sure Jim Murphy was privately educated? He didn’t come from a wealthy background; he was brought up in a council scheme.
Actually I find that ‘class’ labels are unhelpful because their meaning is not precise. ‘Middle class’ is now almost universally a term of abuse, for example, rather than any indication of wealth, education or socio-economic group. It may mean that one went to university – but if so, by definition one cannot have ‘working class’ graduates, nor generations of ‘working class’ students. More often than not, it is an epithet based simply on how one speaks.
As for ‘working class’, traditionally that consisted of those oppressed by employers. Nowadays it might be better to class anybody who does what they like doing (not the other way round) as non-working class and all the rest of us who would rather be doing something else as working class.
MichaelNicholl
Do you think that while positive discrimination as such may not be the way forward, some form of support should be offered to people from less privileged backgrounds in order for them to be able to practically stand for election at all levels?
I suppose that one problem is that unlike the two main parties, we are far less well placed to do such things from a financial point of view.
No, I don’t think Jim Murphy was privately educated, nor privileged.
I’d like to thank and agree with Daisy. If we are to be reincarnated as a truly radical progressive party, then we have to address the appalling lack of diversity. I note the now predictable contributions advocating ‘more of the same’ or the status quo. Any future leadership programme work to tackle the lack of diversity, which in itself needs reviewing, must ensure enough people from BAME / disabled etc backgrounds are supported and represented at all levels of the party, starting with local party and local council level.
Just saw this cracker: All the Labour leadership candidates went to Oxbridge. Party of the working class.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-leadership-candidates-andy-burnham-tristram-hunt-liz-kendall-yvette-cooper-mary-creagh-oxbridge-10256563.html
ADWilliams
I can see what you mean by offering some form of support. We should look at ways to reduce barriers, but as you stated we are at a financial disadvantage. It’s a tricky issue, don’t get me wrong, but positive discrimination in my mind is not the way to go. I would probably say that the best place to start would be at the local council level and not simply sticking someone up for Parliament in 2020.
MichaelNicholl
I think that’s right – let’s develop people at local level now so that they can be ready for parliament – rather than parachuting people.
EddieSammon
I don’t know much about their backgrounds (I think Hunt was privately educated), but let’s not hold Oxbridge against someone – there would be no point in a working class person to aspire to go there If they just got lumped into the ‘privileged’ category and ruled out of leadership as a consequence of their success.
@Eddie Sammon
Yvette Cooper went to a comprehensive, then a sixth form college so hardly a privileged route to Oxford.
Andy Burnham went to a Catholic comprehensive…
Mary Creagh went to a comp….
Liz Kendall went to Watford Grammer School… however it apparently ceased to be a Grammer school as such in 1975 only becoming partially selective again in 1995 so now privilege or special help there…
Tristram Hunt is the exception being educated at University College School. Fancy having a leader who went to a posh London independent school… The Lib Dems also want to be seen as the party of normal working people (in fact of any type of person!) and have been led by a privately educated (at a posh London school!), Oxbridge man for some years. I’m no Clegg fan but I would never hold his background against him, in fact I applauded him when he highlighted that he had had an unfair advantage when discussing interns.
So out of the five one was privately educated the others would have had a pretty uphill battle to get to Oxbridge as would anyone from a Comp at the time they were educated, or indeed today.
I would have though a true liberal would applaud those who achieved entry to the top Universities in our Country in spite of their background. Of the contenders Tristram Hunt would undoubtedly have had the easiest route through life, does that stop him representing the “working class”?
I am a University educated (albeit as a mature student after a first career in the armed forces) son of a painter and decorator. My first class degree does not make my background any less working class. My worldview is formed by the sum of my experiences as I am sure will theirs.
Let’s see what they have to say and whether they will be able to drag their authoritarian party towards a more liberal outlook and judge them on their record and plans for the future, not the education they attained…
“Diversity will come in time”. I joined the party 29 years ago and I’m still waiting for the diversity that I was told was round the corner when I was eighteen! Daisy is right to talk about financial help to candidates/ constituencies but the party could address many areas of inequality without it costing a penny eg making provision for PPCS to take maternity leave if they wish to.
Steve Way, ADWilliams, my point was more to highlight the hypocrisy of Labour rather than criticise Oxbridge dominance.
Yes but what Hypocrisy ? As I have shown four of the five had non-privileged backgrounds.
That’s not to say Labour are not hypocritical, take Tuition fees for example, but let’s not start to slate those who have worked hard to achieve a top class education via the hard route…
Ruth – fair enough (I wasn’t around then), but I feel things are changing. remember that the current crop of MPs are 40s plus.
Steve, I think there is merit in having people with a mixture of backgrounds in leadership positions. This includes manual workers, public sector workers, business people, regular graduates, Oxbridge graduates.
Unfortunately I haven’t got time to get into a lengthy debate on it, but I think there is merit in diversity for the sake of it. I want Oxbridge graduates to be prioritised, but this has been happening in parliament for so long there is a question whether we need a small break from it for now.
It is about diversity, more than privilege, for me.
OK non private school Oxbridge graduates shouldn’t be discriminated against, but no one likes to be discriminated against and everyone will think of a reason why they shouldn’t be, but at the end of the day I think we need more diversity.
We can get into a situation where we have a bit of a closed shop where people aren’t being selected for their ability to do the job, but what university they went to 20 years ago. This is about pragmatism. We need to select the best people and the best team and it is the same arguments around gender, race, disability etc.
I wouldn’t worry about me, I would worry about those who want things like quotas.
Diversity or death.
Because as liberals we dislike identity politics we seem to find it hard to see something which ought to be obvious: to win we need to both get support from as many different people as possible (i.e. from a diversity of people) and we need people to believe us and believe in us when they look at us.
If our candidates don’t come from the society we claim to want to represent, society is not going to support us.
I can’t count the number of times I heard people saying or sharing stuff on facebook about how nice it was to see female party leaders. This isn’t about tokenism. Quite the opposite. People saw Nichola Sturgeon and Caroline Lucas and saw competent and effective women, frequently making points that the ‘white, middle aged, middle class men’ did not.
If we want the support of society we absolutely must support members and candidates from under-represented backgrounds in the party. We must consciously help them overcome the hidden barriers our party structures and our practices – usually unconsciously – put in their way. When we can present a diversity of candidates to the electorate with pride in them, we can expect that the electorate will look on us with much more interest.
I would agree that diversity is important in parliament. But the example used was a poor one. People who managed managed to get to a top University in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s from a comprehensive are a tiny minority. Oxford moved from 49% to 55% of state educated undergraduates between 1989 – 2013. If you consider the number of state educated children versus the number of privately educated ones you can appreciate the achievement of those who did make it. They bring the diversity we need, as do teachers, nurses etc etc. With the exception of Hunt, we are not talking about more of the same Eton (or similar), Oxbridge, “pretend” job followed by safe seat in Parliament people. As we are not with the two candidates for the Lib Dem leadership.
The problem is Liberals cannot talk about equality of opportunity and then make sweeping statements regarding those who managed to get attain a top University degree despite the lack of equal access. If we want a system where intelligent kids can access our best Universities from any background then we should applaud those who have already made the journey, whatever party they belong to and not accuse them of hypocrisy for seeking to lead their respective parties.
I don’t think it was a poor example Steve. Would we want 650 Oxbridge graduates in parliament? No. We need people with wider experience of life. It would also suggest cronyism.
I accept people who go to the best universities should be prioritised, but we still need to watch out for cronyism.
Our party, our parliament, our government should be much more representative – but which unrepresentative groups should we place as needs most help. For instance, 29% of this parliament are women – should we then take up the struggle to get working class MPs voted in rather than female MPs? Or perhaps we should be fighting for MPs who suffer from recognised disabilites who have next to no representation?
ADWilliams 17th May ’15 – 7:43pm
Apologies for coming back late, my bed time is rather earlier than most.
If Scotland was far more left wing, why did it elect 56 relatively middle of the road pro-European, pro-business MPs?
They would not have looked out of place in the SDP in 1983. I never regarded the SDP as being “very left wing” .
I don’t think anybody regarded the SDP as being “very left wing”.
You asked me specific questions, which I answered. If it is OK with you, I will not follow you round the pitch each time you move the goal posts. If as others have pointed out in their comments you think “more of the same” is fine then we disagree. I think we need chage, radical change.
My view is that a political system dominated by white, upper-middle class, privately educated men has been failing this country for the last few centuries and will continue to do so until we change it.
I’m sorry but you seem to think that I and DavidCooper have a penchant for old Etonians, whereas he simply mentioned the fact that the leader of the largest party was educated at Eton, suggesting that background is not an electoral deal breaker. I don’t see how you could interpret it as though we believed in their superiority. Unless you deliberately meant to misrepresent.
We lost many seats to the Conservatives too, and I don’t think that election analysis of this kind really helps with this issue. What happened was complicated, and cannot be reduced to ‘out leader was too posh’.
There is also the issue of what this party is about – what you are saying sounds like class prejudice. That is something which is more common among certain sections of the Labour and Conservative parties. I don’t think it helps us. Far better to have a positive message rather than label enemies, or as Clegg said, the play the politics of fear and grievance.
I also doubt our leader would have chosen to implement that policy were he prime minister. I bear no ill will against him even if his backgrounds is different from mine.
Yes, ‘develop diversity’ and tweak Daisy’s list a little. But not much. I believe these points, and others which include diversity, will gain wide support. We need to present a fresh image and early. Ask our 57,732 members to start looking for a wider membership consistent with our inclusive approach. Get our teams out on the streets and enlist more members now – including from a wide variety of social groupings. And develop local candidates at all levels – to serve their local electorate in wider ways than the parliamentary representatives we are left with – sometimes with quirks of the ballot box – as even our candidates were elected unfairly without PR. Surely, it is going to be hard for 8 MPs to represent the whole electorate but they must be seen and heard to be doing so – even more than before May 7.
Great ideal but flawed …. When you start identifying certain groups you omit others ….. Here for example Trans are excluded … In the party and in LGBT+ if you happen to be straight and Trans you are excluded so even worse! How do we choose candidates from these groups???
I raised issues of concern to Dave Page of the Gay and Bi group and 4 months later still waiting for a reply
Yes to diverse groups but our internal structure still too flawed
Jane Ann Liston 17th May ’15 – 7:
“…Are you sure Jim Murphy was privately educated? He didn’t come from a wealthy background; he was brought up in a council scheme.”
No I’m not sure. I recall that his parents lived in a flat in Arden when he was small, but that Jim Murphy was brought up and went to school in South Africa rather than a scheme in Scotland.
I think I recall correctly that his parents moved to Cape Town, or nearby, during the apartheid years. This stuck in my memory because most South Africans that I knew were moving in the opposite direction in the 1970s.
He is on record as having said that he only came back to Scotland to avoid being called up into the SA army.
He then seemed to be an eternal student before becoming a Labour MP at the age of 30.
If any of this is wrong I apologise.
I agree with what Daisy has put forward. Just a couple of comments.
I don’t think her proposal on a responsibility to act means that every bit of gossip should trigger a full investigation. What it does mean is that we should all be aware that sometimes comments which sound anecdotal have a lot of truth behind them and we should never dismiss them without checking.
Her paragraph 6 could be seen as a way of providing extra support for low-income candidates not as a way of trying to manipulate outcomes. We already have a broad range of support but it is very difficult for people who are struggling with their own finances to find the time to campaign to get elected.
Daisy’s points are well made as are those by many others but I’m not sure a top down approach will be particularly effective. It’s up up to individual associations to take a look at themselves and the demographic of their constituency(s). The Federal Party could perhaps offer an incentive for meeting local membership demographic targets. When the rank and file are more representative we will have a more effective grass roots operation and a channel to attract candidates of the right calibre across the piece.
Hi Daisy, and good foray into the raging debates about what we should be, where we should be going, and how best to prepare ourselves to get there. I support the intent behind all of these, but as others have said, with due regard to the ever-present dangers of unintended (if not unexpected) consequences.
With a handful of ‘pale and male’ we will have a hard job over the next few years of presenting ourselves as reflective, if not representative, of the UK populace at large, and so ensuring that our parties internal structures do reflect the variety of our nations inhabitants must surely be one of our key tasks. Further to that, ensuring that people in senior positions in that structure are then afforded the opportunities to represent and articulate our vision and values, in addition to our MPs and MEP must also be a key objective.
I think we must also look at how we can embrace supporters, since I don’t think the recent membership surge will be enough to sustain the resurgence in our fortunes that we need. I think many more people will want to support our efforts than want to get involved in our structures, and we must find a way to facilitate such engagement.
I would also like to see a review of our party structures; with only 8 MP, 1 MEP, and fewer Councillors than ever I think we could afford a leaners and most responsive organisation, which in turn might actually engender more involvement from those who are time or resource pressed.
I had the same reservation as Simon McGrath. One would hope the candidates, in replying, would be specific in reply to a loosely-worded request to commit to action in response to anecdotal evidence.
Those of us who have fought Labour in working-class urban areas will know how readily they smear us. A Labour-generated rumour that the Liberal Democrat candidates are racists would not be uncommon (once they take us seriously again in such areas). Occasionally there would be some truth in it concerning, say, one candidate in three. But the action that can be taken may be very limited unless we’re prepared to assume every smear is right. Say someone on the doorstep has heard all three Lib Dems are racists. The action is to consider if this might be true. That may not take long at all. But say there’s a rumour about just one person? Quite likely it wouldn’t be self-evidently false. This candidate would have gone through a selection process and might well have given an answer on an equal opportunities question that caused no concern. But maybe a colleague remembers an ambiguous comment from this person that left them uneasy. Maybe (s)he’s personally friendly with a local non-political activist who’s just turned up as a UKIP candidate campaigning on immigration. That’s it. You couldn’t possibly deselect or disavow someone on that basis. At some point, though, you might feel a senior person should tell the person straight there had been some rumours, very likely unfounded, and seek assurances. Or it might just be a matter of keeping eye and ear open for anything more substantial.
We have to remember that with such rumours, be it about race or sexism or religion, it’s very, very easy for an innocent person ‘s credibility to be badly damaged.