Tag Archives: leadership programme

Chris Lucas

Opinion: My twin inspirations – The Terminator and The Leadership Programme!

By Chris Lucas | Sun 21st July 2013 - 3:30 pm

Conference Rally2The other day, I was watching ‘The Terminator’ (one of my favourite films) for the umpteenth time and it occurred to me that it perfectly illustrated how the Liberal Democrat Leadership Programme came about…

Picture the scene. The date is Friday, 8th May, 2015, and many Lib Dems emerge bleary-eyed from their homes, council buildings and school halls after attending counts or watching Peter Snow’s swing-o-meter twitch as the results come in on TV.

In this future, we have had a good election, increasing the number of seats we hold. Of course, …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , and | 19 Comments
Lynne Featherstone

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

By Lynne Featherstone | 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 …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , and | 5 Comments
Layla Moran MP

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

By Layla Moran MP | 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 …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , and | 44 Comments
Mark Pack

The Leadership Programme: the first 11

By Mark Pack | Sat 29th October 2011 - 4:53 pm

The all-member Liberal Democrat News currently in the post to party members includes this update on the party’s Leadership Programme, designed to support candidates from under-represented groups:

Of the first 11 candidates, five are women, three from black and minority ethnic backgrounds, three have disabilities. There is one LGBT candidate and five of the 11 come from low socio-economic backgrounds … we have four candidates on the Programme so far who are under 30.

The scheme is due to expand to support at least 30 people.

You can get a subscription to receive each weekly edition of Liberal Democrat News here.

Posted in Party policy and internal matters | Also tagged and | 2 Comments
Caron Lindsay

Opinion: Tackling the myths about that Scottish Diversity motion

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 18th October 2011 - 2:25 pm

I’ve seen a few comments online over the past few days insinuating that the Scottish Liberal Democrats don’t care about improving diversity in the wake of a motion passed at the recent Scottish Conference after a passionate debate and a protracted and complex series of votes.

I want to correct some myths about what happened. Scottish Women Liberal Democrats (SWLD) put forward a motion containing a wide ranging series of measures. Most of these were uncontroversial. Who can argue with making sure that the concerns of women are hardwired into the policy process?

The first main points of contention were over the …

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Posted in Op-eds and Scotland | Also tagged , , , , and | 9 Comments
Mark Pack

Gender balance amongst the Liberal Democrats: some evidence

By Mark Pack | Mon 3rd October 2011 - 11:20 am

Over the weekend, Paul Head criticised the party’s Leadership Programme, saying,

While the Candidate Leadership Programme seems like a good idea, giving candidates from underrepresented groups the support and training they need to go on and, hopefully, become MPs, I believe it is destined to failure for the same reasons that shortlists are not the answer.

They both ignore the real problem.

Shortlists in particular are a quick-fix, tinkering round the edges, top-down attempt to create the façade that we are a party that is representative of the whole country. The truth is we aren’t. A quick look around the conference hall and

…

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Posted in News | Also tagged , , and | 5 Comments
Paul Head

Opinion: “Too male and too pale” – Why shortlists and the Leadership Programme are not the answer

By Paul Head | Sat 1st October 2011 - 11:21 am

The problem of our Parliamentary Party being “too male and too pale” was brought up again at conference and I couldn’t help leaving with the feeling that we are edging towards another fight over whether we should introduce more proactive methods to help combat the chronic under representation of women and ethnic minorities among our MPs.

I was most struck when Paddy Ashdown, during the Guardian debate, seemed to shift from his previously held position and advocate the introduction of shortlists or “zipping” if the current leadership programme failed to make any significant impact.

I am completely opposed to the introduction …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , and | 18 Comments
Alex Foster

PODCAST: Diversity debate in full

By Alex Foster | Sun 13th March 2011 - 2:51 pm

Following overwhelming demand from our twitter colleagues, we are now publishing in full the debate we had yesterday on diversifying our elected representatives.

You can find my written review of the debate here.

Posted in Conference and Podcasts | Also tagged and | Leave a comment
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