Leadership contest - ah yes, that diversity question once again…

Nearly two years ago, I attended the hustings meeting organised by Ethnic Minority Liberal Democrats, where the three candidates addressed the knotty question of how Liberal Democrats could better reflect the communities they serve. And so it was some interest, and the help of Sandra Gidley MP, whose question it was, that I asked both Chris Huhne and Nick Clegg about the same issue on Saturday.

Once again, Chris strayed awfully close to endorsing quotas, and once again, I wasn’t impressed. Nick, on the other hand, noted that a lot of the proposals hadn’t really been implemented and wondered aloud whether the policy was wrong, or that it simply hadn’t been resourced properly. I confess that I tend towards the latter, and believe that the work of the Campaign for Gender Balance has made a difference, albeit not as quickly as many might have wished for.

There is an assumption that there is a mini-tidal wave of qualified, talented women and ethnic minority members desperate to be Parliamentary candidates and then Members of Parliament in the Liberal Democrat interest. They might not be so keen once they realise how much work a Liberal Democrat PPC has to do, first to get selected, and then to win. I don’t know the answer to either of those questions, and I’m not aware that anyone else does either. Indeed, the answers might be very different under ‘first past the post’ and one of the variants on proportional representation.

However, there are clearly certain barriers that make it harder to compete. Carer commitments, be they children, parents or relatives, act as a hurdle. Relative poverty, or geographical isolation, restricts the ability of a potential candidate to attend events, or travel to training sessions halfway across the country. Small grants could address these problems, and there are currently no programmes in place to address them, perhaps something that Rowntree money might have more helpfully been directed towards.

Quotas, on the other hand, actively discriminate against a group or groups of individuals, and I believe them to be a thoroughly managerial, illiberal way to ‘create’ equality, more worthy of a command-based rights system than a free, just society.

So, on diversity at least, one-nil to the Cleggster. But it’s still early days, and there is much to consider…