Our place to talk – an independent website for supporters of the Liberal Democrat party in the UK.

The most-read independent website by and for Lib Dem supporters. Not paid for by trade unions or millionaires.

Advert

Tag Archives: financial inclusion

Let’s all make conference more financially diverse.

By Joe Richards | Wed 23rd December 2015 - 12:30 pm

Tackling inequality is one of my greatest passions, it quite literally gets me out of bed in the morning.

It’s also quite well established now that the more representative decisions making bodies are, the more all of us benefit, no matter if we belong to an underrepresented group or not. The past decade has been a historical time in politics for minorities and activist groups have many proud achievements to celebrate in the name of diversity (yet of course, we still have so very far to go), but there’s one spectrum of diversity that’s not doing so well lately, and we don’t really appear to be tackling it head on, and that’s financial diversity.

Politics favours the rich. Not just because we aren’t doing enough to create a more fair society, but because Parliament is the most unrepresentative forum you could imagine, and by design: unless you’ve got a spare £34k knocking about, as Isabel Hardman estimated in the Spectator last year, you’d better be prepared to work 50 hours a week and volunteer maybe 20 on top of that if you want a chance of ever standing as a parliamentary candidate.

Continue reading »

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged conference, conference access fund and diversity | 8 Comments

Most Read

Op-eds

Huge victory for Campaign for Gigi (Tom Morrison)
Andy Burnham’s record on policing: Success story or missed opportunity? (Iain Donaldson)
Burnham: Strategic implications (Paul Reynolds)
The Brexit Referendum – 10 years on (Callum Robertson)
One year on, and I’m still finding it hard to feel pride (Rebecca Jones)

Advert

Recent Comments

David Raw
Watched P.M.Q.'s today. Thought Sir Keir Starmer handled it well with great dignity - which is more than I can say for Ms Badenoch who was shrill and cheap in h...
Jana
@Chris Cory “ any result it throws up is fine and shows our democracy is in good shape” No, any result is not ‘fine’ - it may be very unpalatable - ...
Peter Black
@Simon McGrath nobody on the doorstep thought that our budget deal was'keeping Labour in power'. It did not come up at all. Remember that, unlike Wimbledon, Wal...
Nigel Quinton
@Paul why do you say this will be a return to two party politics? Even if Reform diminish, surely Labour and Tory are now shadows of their former selves? LibDem...
Chris Cory
@Jana. It would seem that all you require of a democracy is a vote every 5 years and that any result it throws up is fine and shows our democracy is in good ...