Spend time talking to Liberal Democrat members about how the party should or shouldn’t go about selecting its Westminster Parliamentary candidates and pretty soon you’ll hear someone say, usually in the context of whether or not we have too many male white candidates, “But it should be about selecting the best person for the job”. Even people who argue for either positive action or positive discrimination frequently accept the underlying assumption – but argue that to get the best person for the job requires a broader vision, taking into account wider discrimination in society and so on.
Yet selecting a candidate who we will hope become the MP for a constituency isn’t just about selecting someone to be that local MP, it is also about selecting someone who may join the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Parties. And good Parliamentary Parties, just like good council groups, are team affairs.
Putting together a good team, whether in politics, elsewhere in the public sector, in the private sector or for voluntary groups, is always about more than just the individual merits of the team members. It is also about having the right balance of skills, breadth of experience and a group of people who can work together so as to be more, rather than less, than the sum of their parts.
Having a good Parliamentary team matters for its direct impact on Parliament, and matters also because the Parliamentary team is a key component of the party’s wider policy making process, its shop front to the public and for the major party it plays in the leadership of our organisation.
Why then do we so often debate the rules for selection or the merits of individual candidates as if it all about the selection of an individual and not also the hopeful addition of a new team member? Sports fans know only too well that getting the best team isn’t simply a matter of selecting individuals on their own merits; the overall balance of the team is crucial.
So too in politics saying that selecting candidates is simply about the best person for the job shouldn’t be seen as a powerful statement of the obvious. It’s an erroneous statement of the narrow-minded.
Balancing the individual and team roles is not always easy or straight-forward, even though striking that balance is something many local parties are already partly used to thanks to selecting teams of local election candidates for multimember wards at council level. The issue also peeks in a little when it comes to list selections for Europe, Scotland, Wales and London, albeit less so as much of the time electing more than one person from one of those lists is unlikely.
One of the difficulties in striking the right balance for the Westminster Parliament is that hundreds of selections are run independently, spread out over time and by different organisational units. By contrast, multimember ward selections are done at the same time by the same group of people – making balancing a team much easier. Indeed, many local parties in effect select local election candidates in one big go, doing most if not all wards at once and with a beady eye on the overall balance of the team.
If the party decides to take it, there is an opportunity is coming up to make it easier for party members to consider team factors when selecting Parliamentary candidates. The changes in Parliamentary boundaries being introduced by the Coalition Government will necessitate far more crossing of local government boundaries by the new constituency boundaries. As a result, the party will have to get used to far more cases where local party boundaries cannot neatly match local and Westminster boundaries (let alone the complications that devolved boundaries also bring in places, particularly in Scotland).
That enforced need to work together, on a larger stage and across existing units, provides an opportunity to move towards running more selections for groups of neighbouring seats at the same time (and, in England, a greater role for regional parties in facilitating this). If, for example, two neighbouring council areas each have their own Parliamentary seat but also two that cross between them, selecting all four seats at one go provides some logistical advantages but also provides the opportunity to move towards a greater emphasis on thinking about the team when selecting candidates. Such combined selections would also give a helpful nudge in the direction of encouraging local parties to work together more across existing boundaries, sharing resources and skills.
In many areas we are already used to the idea that party members get a vote in selections for more than just the ward or the constituency they live in; for example, in a London borough party they may get votes for all the borough’s Parliamentary candidates and all the local election candidates too.
As with those London rules, the way to do this is not be enforced central dictact, but rather by removing some of the central straightjacket rules and giving areas the power to do this where they wish. In some places the geography of boundaries and parties will make it an obvious and sensible choice; in others it won’t. That is fine – localism is after all, something we are quite comfortable with as a party. But above all, what a missed opportunity it would be if new boundaries are just met with the old party rules.
This piece appears in the latest edition of Liberator.
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7 Comments
“selecting a candidate who we will hope become the MP for a constituency isn’t just about selecting someone to be that local MP, it is also about selecting someone who may join the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Parties”
I couldn’t disagree more! The local party selects the candidate that will best represent their interests in parliament, and who will have the best chance of winning the seat. Whether s/he slots in neatly between Lynne and Jeremy, and complements Nick’s clarity with David’s depth, is utterly beside the point. Your football analogy is entirley spurious: football teams are a set size and are selected from the top down; the complete opposite of a parliamentary party that changes in size from election to election and is chosen from the bottom up.
“the party will have to get used to far more cases where local party boundaries cannot neatly match local and Westminster boundaries”
As somebody who is a member of a Borough-Plus party that covers three constituencies including all of one borough and a tiny part of another, I can tell you that this is a far from ideal scenario – though sometimes unavoidable. Even so, I don’t recall anybody selecting the constituency candidates based on their complementary skills. They were chosen for their activism in the area and their ability to come over well in the hustings – not a bad basis for a PPC, I might add.
“the way to do this is not be enforced central dictact, but rather by removing some of the central straightjacket rules and giving areas the power to do this where they wish”
Thank heavens! If local parties want to hold mass-selections that is of course up to them. But I doubt it will lead to parties giving much thought to the balance of the parliamentary team.
Where I think there is an issue of teambuilding that local selectors should consider it is how the candidate complements the local team. Does the local area have a strong activist or does it need a self-starter? Does it need a leader who is inspiring, who has strong organisational abillities or who works hard on the ground? Does the PPC need to be the organiser or is there one already? Does the area need a strong press presence or a strong doorstep presence? The glib answer to many of these questions is “all of the above” but as few candidates are equally good at everything, local selectors need to consider what the key needs of their area, and of their team, are.
One last thing:
“positive action or positive discrimination”
Can you clarifiy what the difference is, please?
Having stood as a candidate outside my area and voted to select the 3 candidates to stand in my London borough I agree with Mark!
It’s not just the team into which the candidate may enter with Nick, Lynne, Jeremy etc but also the team that they can build to help win the seat(s). A candidate who can develop a team, recognise people’s skill sets and perhaps bring some people with them who wouldn’t normally be involved, adds to the local party’s resources and best develops those already available.
In my borough, I voted for a mix of candidates, we ended up with 3 men but one was young and one was not white. All the candidates were good and while one of my choices didn’t make it that was the decision of the local party and one I had to accept. Across a diverse borough (as much of London is), where approx 50% of people are women, I think that these are important considerations and if you can demonstrate how the candidates work together as a team to achieve results across the borough then all the better. The Tories certainly managed this and took two of the three seats.
A PPC cannot carry the entire local party but should work to inspire others to work hard too and build a team. If they get elected they will need this team to keep things going when they are busy in Westminster, to continue fundraising, handling local issues and knowing what’s going on and where. At some stage the candidate will retire and the team will choose a new candidate and support them. A strong team improves the chance of the new candidate winning or retaining the seat.
There are many teams in successful politics – the local Lib Dem activist team; the fundraising team; the team of council candidates or councillors; the team of local PPCs/MPs tackling wider issues such as hospital provision; the parliamentary team; the interest groups; the constituents that can be consulted for expert views on issues in their experience/profession/local area and on and on.
Ignore the team(s) at your peril.
Tom: you talk about other teams mattering (e.g. the local one – which is an important point I agree with) so I’m not sure why you draw the line at Parliament and say that team shouldn’t be a factor? Is it that you think how the MPs work together as a team doesn’t matter that much?
Re. positive action / discrimination – I was using the conventional shorthand, using these phrases to distinguish between actions such as training and mentoring on the one hand and reserved places on the other.
Mark,
The distinction I am making is that it is one thing for a local party to choose the person who will lead their local team, which that person must complement, and for a local party to choose a person to represent and work with them based on how that person might complement a group of people from entirley different locales over whom the local party has no control. Now, if there were national selections for PPCs (perish the thought) then this would not be a problem, but for local parties to consider what the needs of the parliamentary party might be rather than what the immediate local campaign goal is would put the cart before the horse and lead to fewer Lib Dems being elected.
Dawn,
Your second paragraph seems to agree with my seventh. My concern is with Mark’s suggestion that local parties should concern themselves with the make-up of the parliamentary party rather than the needs of the local team.
Hi Mark,
A very interesting article and I think the idea of selecting in groups is a very interesting idea. Of course there is a natural tension between those of a liberal bent who want to analyse everything at the level of the individual and the reality that people live, work and often identify themselves and others as part of a group, ensuring that the make up of groups as well as the individuals’ competencies matters.
Tom, I think how a candidate suits the local party is very important but to say that’s all members who vote should think of is unnecessarily narrow minded.
In my experience people select candidates using all sorts of criteria: from thinking about the needs of the local party, to a gut instinct, to voting for a friend or partner. All of which are valid. I don’t see anything wrong in adding in some other factors for local members to think of – certainly if I were in the position of selecting a candidate in a winnable seat I would want to think beyond the local campaign to their potential contribution as a legislator.
But, in the Lib Dem, there is a more pressing issue, as we are in danger of being seen as weak on diversity – that counter narrative won’t care about how all the white men (for example) we select are perfect for the local party, it’ll just stick and end up being electorally damaging. Why shouldn’t I be aware of the impact that my individual choices have on the performance of the Liberal Democrats as a national force?
I agree with Jo about being non-diverse. We ought to bear that in mind when selecting candidates -and the recent motion at conference may help with that. But…..
I don’t agree with much of what Mark said (probably for the first time ever). My reason: because his point about selecting for the Westminster team only has weight if your average PPC stood any chance at all of being elected. Most of us (I’ve been one twice) may hope to win, but given how few MPs we actually get as a party, the usefulness of a PPC is mainly in getting local activism going.
MrsB: Well, I like to have some variation in what I write 🙂
Tom: As Jo says, I don’t think it’s an either/or; candidate selections can be done with more than one factor in mind. But at heart I suspect we do have rather different views on whether worrying about how the Parliamentary party works should be one of them!