In response to recent questions raised about the party’s diversity fund, Steve Hitchins has provided Liberal Democrat Voice with a piece that will soon be run in the party’s official newspaper, Liberal Democrat News.
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Last summer, Ming Campbell announced the launch of his diversity fund “to assist women, disabled, black and ethnic minority candidates to contest winnable seats for the party”. This fulfilled a pledge made in his leadership campaign and he asked Steve Hitchins to work with him on these issues. Steve has an excellent track record in promoting women and ethnic minority candidates based on the time that he was the Lib Dem Leader of Islington Council.
In September Ming was able to announce that £200,000 had been pledged from the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust to help improve the diversity of the parliamentary party at Westminster. The party is gearing up for a General Election at any time from when there is a new Prime-Minister. So selections are speeding up, quite a few of the most winnable seat selections have already taken place and over £50,000 has already been allocated to help make the difference in a number of the key seats where the result could be crucial to improving the diversity of our MPs.
No money is offered prior to a selection, but objective assessments of targeting policy are being made, support allocated professionally by the party’s Campaigns Department and additional support provided from the Diversity Fund in some cases where winning would improve the diversity of the parliamentary party.
Steve Hitchins told Liberal Democrat News: “It is one of the harsh realities of political life that money helps you fight winning campaigns. We pride ourselves that in the Liberal Democrats because of our tireless volunteers our money goes a great deal farther than it does in either of the other parties. But there is no doubt that those extra £ notes make a difference. So I’m delighted that this completely new and additional amount of money is being spent to secure even more Liberal Democrat seats at the next General Election and this will directly increase the diversity of our Parliamentary Party.
“The purpose of the fund is to deliver a more diverse parliamentary party after the next General Election. The fund is about winning more seats. So seats, which are good prospects and then select female and/or ethnic minority candidates are automatically considered for additional funding. In due course these seats may get promotion to target seat status. This, as ever, depends on local activity as much as on central support. This is not about switching existing funds or depriving anyone of the chance to do well. Nor is it about undermining local selection, introducing positive discrimination or lowering the quality of all our candidates. The fund will increase the overall number of target seats and successes with new money to deliver a more diverse Lib Dem team in the House of Commons.
“We have a modest amount of money but quite a few talented women and ethnic minority candidates in constituencies that are good prospects will benefit in terms of support for their campaigns. This will make a difference to the long term reputation of the party and Ming’s ambition to help our MPs become more representative of the country that we seek to represent.”
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26 Comments
If the money is being allocated after selection then I see no real problem with this.
Colin
Colin Ross
Wolverhampton
http://www.colin-ross.org.uk
Quite – it puts all of the previous moaning about this into perspective.
I hope Iain Dale is reading…
Which Iain Dale, me or the Tory?
I agree. This seems a perfectly acceptable initiative, and indeed one to be welcomed. It is using external money that wouldn’t otherwise be available. People are not being told they will become target seats if they select a particular type of person.
The key point Steve Hitchins makes in his piece is “In due course these seats may get promotion to target seat status. This, as ever, depends on local activity as much as on central support.” This is similar to the previous initiative WITS (Women In Target Seats) that helped deliver seats such as Cheadle and Guildford in 2001. Those were seats that already had high levels of local activity, the additional help just made the difference.
“Steve has an excellent track record in promoting women and ethnic minority candidates based on the time that he was the Lib Dem Leader of Islington Council.” Really? Not sure Suz would agree! He has an excellent track record of losing you seats which is good enough for me!
Which Iain Dale, me or the Tory?
As in the Tory blogger. Wow – you must get that a lot… 😉
I don’t know Steve Hitchins except by reputation and comments from some of the women and ethnic minority councillors he has allegedly promoted. I totally agree with the establishment of the fund but I think it was sadly ill judged to put a white able bodied man in charge of it, were there none of these “talented” women, disabled or BME candidates capable of helping Ming on this? And also, a little like our national failure in tennis, we will fail in this mission if we do not recognise we need to encourage diversity from the bottom up and at all levels of the party if things are ever to change.
Want to do a thread of this one, Mark?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cornwall/6297303.stm
Linda – Steve has a fantastic track record in diversity. Look at the 2002 Islington council group, for example: 50:50 Female:Male ratio, 5 BME (+1 in a by-election), 6 gay & lesbian, at least 2 with disabilities. Even the tough elections last year saw a very diverse group elected – must be the only council group in the country where women outnumber men by 2 to 1!
Surely the point about the post is not the gender/race of the person who’s running it (who, after all, is not putting themselves up for election) but their success in getting women, BME etc candidates elected?
I think you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone in this party (or any other) with a better track record on this than Hitchins.
We should be very careful about buying into the suggestion that people of a certain gender or race can properly represent similar people.
Lots of the people I represent in court are black, women, or in other ways different from me. I would bet money that none of them would say they would have got a better service had I been BME or female.
In politics or any calling it’s what you do that counts not what you look like.
I would add that distributing extra money to candidates of certain race or sex was always going to wind up some people in the party. Even if it is “new” Rowntree money.
Why couldn’t Rowntree have given money directly to individual set-to-win candiates who meet their criteria?
That way their objective is fulfilled and people who don’t like it can’t properly say the party is complicit in positive discrimination.
Clue might be in the word “currently” used in the post by “It’s a one-horse race”.
Obviously can’t condone the misspelling of your name, though 😉
What about the views of 3 females who actually know Hitchins.
“TOWN Hall leader Councillor Steve Hitchins was described as “the Fuhrer” this week by a former colleague who attacked his “extremely dictatorial” and “bullying” attitude. Councillor Joan Coupland described an incident in April, when she was mayor, during which a furious Cllr Hitchins thumped his fist down on a desk in his office when she refused to go out and canvass for the Lib Dems.”
http://www.camdennewjournal.co.uk/092905/inews.htm
“So many of our ex councillors refused to stand again at the last election because they could no longer tolerate working with Hitchins. Hadn’t realised the extent of his bullying – his insulting behavour towards and the backstabbing of his fellow councillors and other local party members until recently. He seemed to take delight in humilating the men and making women cry, completely ostracizing those he didn’t like or who tried to stand up to him. A real machiavellian character and ultimate control freak”
And the disabled ex-councillor?
Instead Ming puts Hitchens in charge of something to thwart Sandra Gidley. Sandra at least had the guts to stab Charles in the front whereas Ming bottled it and then demoted Sandra and kept the funds away from her diversity work.
You miss the fact that the Adjucation Panel for England found cllr Coupland’s evidence unreliable and comprehensively dismissed it in their findings.
To quote: “Councillor Coupland was an unreliable witness. Her recollection of events even significant ones was poor, her witness statement was materially inaccurate and misleading and the Tribunal notes it was made only after her recent decision to join the Labour Party.”
and: “Her tempering of that evidence before the Tribunal persuades us that she exaggerated the position in her witness statement and that, combined with her lack of knowledge of how the Executive operates indicates to us that little weight should be attached to her evidence on this issue”
Full story at: http://labour-watch.blogspot.com/2006/01/labour-mp-and-islington-labour-slammed.html
Quoting from ‘that blog’ also does little to substantiate your case!
I think there has been too much attention on who is administering the Diversity Fund. The whole thing is a distraction. The Party leadership is at long last taking diversity issues seriously, and this is what is important. The Fund is a small amount of money, which will help a few people. The Fund’s administrator is not responsible for fundraising for extra funds.
The history of Islington Council is well documented. The tragedy is, we lost 14 seats in May 2006. Labour went from 10 seats to 23, the Greens gained a foothold with 1 seat.
We failed to engage or target the ethnic minority communities, despite the fact they make up over 40% of the population.Ethnic minority councillors went down from 6 to 4, with 3 ethnic minority cllrs standing down after 1 term.
Hopefully, lessons have been learnt. You cannot take anything for granted.
Yes we lose Islington and Hitchins failure is rewarded with the sensitive area of spending the diversity money.
To quote about Islington…
“We failed to engage or target the ethnic minority communities, despite the fact they make up over 40% of the population”
and after that, Hitchins is supposed to be the best person in the party to improve our MP ratios?
That is like Sven Goran Ericksson being put in charge of Chelsea.
It is sad, indeed disturbing, that anyone, Lib Dem or otherwise, should wish to defend Steve Hitchins. The man is a bully, a control freak, a vindictive paranoiac of the first order. His methods have no place in a democratic party and should not be tolerated.
It is a bit rich for Islingtonian to pray in aid the findings of lawyers, given Hitchins’s undisguised, visceral contempt for the legal profession and refusal to be bound by rules.
£200,000 is a substantial amount of money. Used judiciously – this can help deliver a bit of diversity (not enough – but a start). What Hitchins needs to do is make sure that he is ruthless in its use rather than trying to please a plethora. The worst thing would be to see such a fund dribbled ineffectively.
On the face of it £200,000 does appear to be a good sum of money, but if we have say, 25 women in target seats, and around 10 ethnic minority PPCs also in target seats, that works out to around £5,700. I agree with Lynne that it needs to be used sensibly. The more individuals from under-represented groups we have in target seats, the less money there is to go round. EMLD has asked , and this has been agreed, that a Reference Group be established to work with the Fund administrator to ensure decisions made are balanced ones. it cannot be the decision of an individual as to which seats are deemed target seats. This is not a democratic way of doing things.
“”Instead Ming puts Hitchens in charge of something to thwart Sandra Gidley. Sandra at least had the guts to stab Charles in the front whereas Ming bottled it and then demoted Sandra and kept the funds away from her diversity work.””
I would have hoped that a man like Ming would see Hitchins for exactly what he is. If not, we’re in trouble.
Why was Hitchins chosen for this role? I can think of 5 reasons:-
(1) Hitchins has time on his hands.
(2) MPs and councillors should not be diverted from their primary duties (eg, Sandra Gidley has to concentrate on Romsey rather than tour the country handing out largesse).
(3) Hitchins ran an agency which administered state funding for training the unemployed – he has some credentials in this area.
(4) Hitchins had a record of delivery for Paddy Ashdown on internal party projects (a nasty man, but good at his job).
(5) The £200,000 comes from an external source, and would not be available for other Lib Dem purposes. It is difficult to see how the money can be spent usefully (it isn’t a want of boodle to blame for the lack of minority candidates). Why not dump this half-baked project on Hitchins?
A fascinating debate, to say the least.
Steve Hitchens does generate very strong opinions and has left a trail of bruised egos in his wake over the years. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, although it might be hard to appreciate if you possess one of those bruised egos.
It doesn’t make him an inappropriate choice to lead on the issue of the fund either, and even his enemies need to accept that his success in leading the Party in Islington from comparative irrelevance to power is a clear indication of a person who knows how to win and what you need to do to achieve that victory.
Frankly, we’ll only really be able to judge the impact of his work at the end of this electoral cycle when all the results are in. On the other hand, as a member of the English Candidates Committee, I would like to be reassured that there exist criteria to support the decisions taken (not that these could be public for fear of giving too much information to our opponents), and that proper records are kept to allow us to quantify the success or otherwise of the fund. Otherwise, we risk repeating our mistakes or, worse still, failing to consolidate our successes.
I’m to be convinced that I represent the ‘friends of Steve Hitchens’, as I’ve had precious little contact with him over the years. If his behaviour has been inappropriate, then there is a procedure whereby complaints can be lodged. The apparent absence of such complaints rather undermines some of the more virulent condemnations here but, even were he to be guilty of such offences in the past, I was under the impression that we believe in the possibility of rehabilitation anyway.
Meral Ece is right though, the important thing is that something is actually being done, rather than a series of debates about what might be done without conclusion. If we want progress on diversity issues, this seems to be the means that least impinges upon our desire that candidates are selected based as far as is possible on merit, although there are risks which will need to be monitored. And that, I trust, will be something for the Reference Group to assess…
I read through this debate with increasing frustration because the discussion is centred around the money rather than the challenge facing the Party – selection of ethnic minority PPCs in winnable seats !
A reminder of how we got to the point where Ming appointed Steve Hitchins might help focus minds on what the task facing the Party is (Steve please take note).
During the course of the last leadership elections EMETF called the Leadership candidates to say how they would address the ethnic minority deficit in Parliament. All candidates agreed that we could not go into the next general election without ethnic minority candidates in seriously winnable seats.
All candidates pledged affirmative action to make this happen
They also publicly acknowledged that there was a need to continue to address the issue of limited number of women Lib Dem MPs.
Since his his election Ming has remained true to his word, as is evidenced by his many public pronouncements on the subject.
He even secured £200,000.00 for the cause (not enough but a goodly sum nonetheless)
But as has been said by others this is not just about the money.
It is about actively developing and implementing a strategy that will result in 3 or 4 ethnic minority candidates being in selected in seats the Party genuinely thinks it has a chance of winning – and to me that means 3 or 4 ethnic minoity candidates in our amongsat our top 75 target seats
The diversity fund needs to be put to use for this purpose first and foremost. The decision on how that is done needs to be taken by a group of people who have demonstrated their commitment to this cause by campaigning tirelessly over the years. There is no shortage of such people within the Party
I understand Steve has put together a Diversity Group of assorted hand picked individuals some of whom have had little contact with the Party in the past.
My concern is that this group does not have a single person representing EMLD or EMETF or WLD or GBTF
It is this that makes me question whether Steve Hitchins really wants to deliver what Ming has promised or whether he is working on an alternative agenda – one of his own making
My challenge to Steve is this
1. Publish your strategy for achieving Ming’s promise
2. Tell us how you are going to encourage winnable seats to select Ethnic Minority candiates
3. Publish the criteria against which the decision on how the funds are to be allocated
4. Tell us how many seats with Women Candidates and how many Seats with Ethnic Minoirty Candidates money will get money from this special fund
5. Name the seats that you have shared £50,000 of the £200,000.00 with and on tell us why you think they needed the money
No apologies for having gone on a bit!
We cannpt afford to have NO ethnic minority candidates amongst our top target seats in the nex the general election
Se the donation of £200,000
Rabbi: did you really mean to say, “The decision on how that is done needs to be taken by a group of people who have demonstrated their commitment to this cause by campaigning tirelessly over the years”?
Shouldn’t the decisions be made by a group of people who will achieve results? Some (many, most) may be people who have worked on the issue for many years, but shouldn’t ability to deliver results rather than years in post be the key criteria?
Rabi raises some vald points – the diversity fund was sold to the Party at conference as something that was going to help the Party become more diverse
Stve Hitchens could do the Party and the cause much good by telling everybody how many seats he thinks the 200 thousand pounds will help the Party win
If anyone thinks that Steve Hitchens or anyone else involved in the distribution of this money is going to publish the criteria in public, let alone list which seats it is being targeted at, they are barking mad.
I have been reading this thread with great interest.
Some of the commentators are well known to me and played a part in my de-selection process to replace me with a white man. One of the commentators was part of a committee asked by the party to -investigate-. He was asleep most of the time! I mean literally asleep sitting around the small table next to the chair!
You make me laugh!