Candidate selection: this may not be as easy as you think it is…

There was a lot of talk in Harrogate about the importance of “career structure” in relation to potential candidates, and that having a selection schedule would help candidates plan their moves beyond the short-term. It was also asserted, although it was never made clear to me why, that it would improve the diversity of our candidates.

Now this is not exactly a new concept and I am aware that I was talking about career structures for potential candidates nearly two decades ago. But there are some hurdles that need to be overcome.

Firstly, control of a selection timetable currently sits with the Local Parties. They, or at least their Executive Committees, decide that they’re ready, seek the appointment of a Returning Officer and, theoretically, off they go. Of course, there has to be one available, and the basic rules of supply and demand kick in here. It does get more complex if more than one Local Party is involved, because you need to confirm the approval of each of them before you proceed. It would be fair to note that some Local Parties are more engaged than others.

Presuming that the selection timetable is to come from the newly empowered Joint States Candidates Committee, there is therefore a working presumption that conversations will be had to ensure that any such schedule has buy-in from the appropriate Local Parties, unless there is a currently unannounced suggestion that such power might be taken away. I don't have any reason to believe that any such suggestion exists.

Secondly, if you're serious about giving candidates as much notice as possible in order to do the groundwork in advance, there needs to be at least the making of a schedule. If that already exists, then all is good. if it doesn't, we've effectively delayed the start of selections supposedly urgently sought.

My gut feeling is that, in order to satisfy at least the spirit of what has been promised, we need to do the things outlined in my post on Sunday, i.e.

• thrash out a provisional timetable which includes as many seats as possible, in accordance with the plan that Campaigns presumably either has or soon will have

• advise the Local Parties where they fit into that schedule (although hopefully, the Campaigns Team will have had those conversations already)

• tell everybody what that timetable is

• arrange some approval days to handle potential applicants and schedule them

• appoint some Returning Officers for those seats on the early part of the schedule

Only then can we start selections. How much time do we need? Well, we possibly need to establish who is now responsible for what, which is a bit of an open question, especially as we don't have a widely-known timetable for State Party ratification. The organisers behind the adopted constitutional amendment may find that, if they want urgent action, they are somewhat reliant on the people they rather carelessly upset in the first place.

Now I freely acknowledge that I may be giving the impression of ever so slightly enjoying this. I'm not. But I know a little about human beings and how they operate, and you might not be reasonable in expecting a bunch of people who felt rather trashed by recent events to then put their shoulders to the wheel to make it all work.

I'll be encouraging my colleagues in the East of England to move as fast as we are allowed but, rest assured, I will be attempting to synthesise what was promised in the debate into something that can be delivered.

F10 is passed overwhelmingly. Now the work begins…

I have made my position clear on the proposal to change who manages the candidate pipeline. And, whilst the speeches in favour were impassioned, and the problems outlined all too genuine, I remain unconvinced that “moving the deckchairs” actually does anything to address the complex issues that make approving and selecting candidates so challenging.

I did, and still do, support the espoused goals of the movers. All of the issues they raised in terms of diversity, democracy and career development are entirely valid and should be the focus of all of us involved in the “candidate pipeline”.

But the status quo offered a pretty poor defence, and the constitutional amendment was overwhelmingly carried. That’s democracy. And so we move on. I’m not entirely sure who takes on that mantle but, having won, I presume that more detail will emerge.

There is the small matter of State Party approval, and I would hope that English Council will simply acknowledge events and not put obstacles in the way, which "might" delay the transition. In the meantime, as a member of a Regional Candidates Committee, we’ll have to sit down and work out what we do whilst that transition happens.

It’s clear what our campaigners want, and we need to think about how we deliver that in the near term.

My gut feeling, and this is only a first instinctual draft, is to

• thrash out a provisional timetable which includes as many seats as possible, in accordance with the plan that Campaigns presumably either has or soon will have

• advise the Local Parties where they fit into that schedule (although hopefully, the Campaigns Team will have had those conversations already)

• tell everybody what that timetable is

• arrange some approval days to handle potential applicants and schedule them

• appoint some Returning Officers for those seats on the early part of the schedule

We’ll have to assume that the Selection Rules recently passed by the English Party are effective until or unless someone tells us they aren’t, but that’s a (potential) problem for another day.

There was talk of a different role for Regional Candidates Committees, of pastoral care and support. Traditionally, we saw our role, and indeed, it was defined, as process focused, so some of us, myself included, might not have the skill set for that. Training and support were delivered by others, whereas we were rather more neutral arbiters of an occasionally challenging HR process. Indeed, I used my skills as a Returning Officer as a springboard to apply for, and get, a job running high volume internal recruitment schemes for my employer.

I was damned good at running systems and ensuring that they respected vacancy holders and applicants alike, but I wasn’t much good at dealing with the personal issues of colleagues.

But we’ll see. Ultimately, I’d like to see what emerges from this process, so that I can determine where, or if, I have a useful role to play.

More thoughts on those proposed changes to the way the Party manages candidates

Yesterday, I wondered about the impact of proposed changes to how the Party manages candidate approval and selection in relation to my current role as a member of my Regional Candidates Committee. I wasn't convinced that it left me with much of a role.

But it did lead me to take a closer look at the proposals, and the more I look, the less I like it.

At the moment, each State Candidates Committee has responsibility for establishing a list of approved Parliamentary candidates, determining how they will be approved and what the processes are for selecting candidates in each parliamentary constituency. It isn't perfect - there were always issues about whether an approval under the Welsh system was valid in England, and vice versa, although as the systems converged, and the Scots and Welsh Parties effectively adopted the systems developed in England, these problems tended to fade to insignificance.

What does tend to "gum up" the system is:

• a lack of people willing to be approved as Parliamentary candidates

• a lack of people willing to be trained as candidate assessors - it's a pretty full-on responsibility

• a lack of Returning Officers - likewise it's a pretty labour intensive role requiring a varied set of skills

• an unwillingness from some Local Parties to select earlier rather than later

In other words, it's mostly human resources which get in the way of the best intentions of a group of volunteers.

And so, the proposal intends to solve these problems by centralising the process - "professionalising" as the text of the motion reads. From my perspective, it isn't clear to me how changing who manages the process will actually address the shortages of volunteers to actually run it. Indeed, the motion is silent on it, and there has been seemingly no effort to explain.

Now far be it for me to suggest that this proposal has not been drafted with any consideration for the "poor bloody infantry" who deliver most of the candidate selection and approval activity, all of whom are volunteers, but I am aware that there has been no meaningful consultation with those in key positions on State Candidates Committees, and that this proposal has been rushed through in the light of a report which was only published seven weeks ago.

In other words, the General Election Review report has been published, its findings endorsed by Federal Board, and a major change to the party's constitutional arrangements drafted in just five weeks. You'll pardon me if that doesn't suggest that any consultation that might have taken place was perfunctory at best.

Personally, I am unconvinced, noting that those people who spent the past five years at the coal face of candidate approval and selection don't appear wildly impressed either by the General Election Review or by this proposal.

But this may not be the worst of it...

Am I to be abolished just as I was getting started?

Having had what I might describe as "not the happiest experience" with my Regional Party four years ago, I decided that, perhaps, I ought to dip a toe back into the water. And so, I ran for, and was elected to, the Regional Candidates Committee.

As a former member of the English Candidates Committee, Senior Returning Officer and candidate assessor, I do know my way around the world of candidate selection and approval and, I like to think, I have some wider credibility amongst the "candidates fraternity" within the Party. In short, I though that I could be useful.

But change and uncertainty are seldom far away and, in this instance, this comes in the form of a rather lengthy motion/constitutional amendment which will come to Federal Conference later this month.

My attention was drawn to the proposed redrafting of Article 19.1 of the Federal Constitution which currently reads as follows:

Each State Party shall establish a Candidates Committee or provide for some or all of its functions to be discharged by another unit or units (and every such unit shall be deemed to be a State Candidates Committee for the purposes of this Article 19).

The revised version as proposed reads:

Each State Party shall establish a Candidates Committee in order to carry out its responsibilities for elections to the Westminster and European Parliaments as well as any elections to the House of Lords or its successor, including implementing the requirements set under Article 13.5. 

This appears, on the face of it, to deny the right of State Candidates Committees to devolve some or all of their functions to Regional Candidates Committees which leads to the question:

What are Regional Candidates Committees for in this brave new world?

And, I have to admit, the answer appears to be "nothing".

I think that I'm going to have to ask some questions...

Regional Candidates Committee - let the verwaltung* commence (but not until the New Year)

And so, I was elected to the Regional Candidates Committee for the East of England Liberal Democrats - fairly comfortably as it turned out. And that wasn't a given. I've been far from active in Regional Party politics since my two year stint as Regional Secretary more than a decade ago, and many of our current members weren't around then. So, in that sense, apart from my friends and colleagues that I've kept up with, I don't have an obvious support base in such elections and rather relied on a manifesto rich in experience and high on relevance to get me through.

But here we are, and I have a job of work to do - although what I end up doing is to a great extent dependent on what the re-elected Regional Candidates Chair, Lori Flawn, needs or wants. At least I know what might be done, and when, which should at least be useful. And, I don't want her job, so I won't be getting in her way (not deliberately, anyway).

The new Committee, currently consisting of Lori, myself, Jacqui Morley (the Regional Vice Chair), Will Tennison and David Roberts, takes up its duties on 1 January, which gives me time to do some light reading first - it's always nice to know exactly what the parameters are and who I might want to talk to at various points. And, at some point, I ought to get to know my new colleagues a little better - to be honest, only Lori is that familiar to me.

So, where is that Regional Constitution…

You can, apparently, never start too early...

I received a telephone call during Conference, whilst walking on the beach, from an unfamiliar telephone number. Admittedly, I don't tend to get an awful lot of telephone calls from people, so my contact list is a bit bereft. On this occasion, it was Paul Clark, my Region's Candidates Chair, with news of a mission. He needs a Returning Officer, and I'm apparently the person for the job.

As I suddenly have some time on my hands, at least, over the medium to long term, I said that I would do it. And so, it's time to reread the Selection Rules, saddle up my trusty ballot box, and set off on the long road towards selecting another PPC.

I've been doing this for some time now, indeed, I've been running candidate selections for the Party for more than two decades, and much has changed in that time. The approval process has become more sophisticated, the Selection Rules have become more, and then less, complicated, but the biggest change is the introduction of more wide-reaching guidance to ensure that our candidates are more diverse than was the case when I started.

Now in truth, that's a thoroughly good thing. It simply shouldn't be the case that the image of a Parliamentary candidate is a middle-aged man in a suit, although it is still an image which flashes a fin in the eyes of many when you discuss politicians. And it takes positive action to generate a spectrum of candidates more reflective of the wider community. Don't start me on what it needs to make Westminster more reflective of society.

You'll pardon me, however, if I'm not very forthcoming as to which constituency it is. It will be a matter for disclosure within the Party soon enough but there is much work to do before I get to that point.

It does allow me an opportunity to remind readers, especially those of a Liberal Democrat persuasion who are ambitious to run for Westminster, that if you think you're ready, it's never too soon to get that application form in...

Want to be a European Parliamentary Candidate? Not approved yet? You had better get a move on...

There is an article on the Party website encouraging members to apply to be candidates for the Party. It is, obviously, the sort of thing that I approve of. At the end, it notes that the advert for the European Parliamentary selection will be published almost immediately after the Referendum.

What it doesn't say is that applications are currently scheduled to close on 22 July, and that, if Article 17 of the Selection Rules is to be believed (and trust me, as a Returning Officer, it will be), applicants must be approved European candidates by that date.

This offers an interesting challenge, as I wonder how many Regional Candidates Chairs have made provision for candidate development days to deal with a late rush of applications for approval...

I also have a nasty feeling about the eligibility of all of those who joined the Party after the General Election, whose renewal date is 31 July.

However, I'm sure that the powers that be (English Candidates Committee) thought about this when setting the schedule for the selection. They did, didn't they?...

European Selections: could these be the most open ones for a generation?

Being a European Parliamentary candidate for the Liberals and then Liberal Democrats has seldom been easy. Before the advent of list elections, it was not until the 1994 elections that a Liberal Democrat was elected (there were two of them – Graham Watson and Robin Teverson). And so, when list elections were introduced for the 1999 European Parliamentary elections, European selections began to really matter, and not just in places of traditional liberal strength.

With as many as eleven candidates to be elected in some Regions, achieving 12% of the vote across a European Region would probably be enough to get you elected, should you be lucky enough to be on top of the list. Indeed, with the use of the D’Hondt system of proportional representation, in some Regions, electing two Liberal Democrats was a possibility (South East, for example). The selections really mattered, and were fiercely contested as a result.

There was a small catch though, one which only began to emerge in the course of the next selection, which took place in 2002. The incumbent MEP had a huge advantage, with a budget to issue annual mailings to members (some of which were conveniently timed to go out just before the campaign phase) and a profile that made it hard to envisage them being defeated in a selection contest.

As it turned out, it wasn’t hard to beat them – it was impossible. And with the curious fact that, as a pro-European political party, we tend to underperform in regional list elections (and one could go on for hours about why that is), it meant that other applicants were contending to be the ones that didn’t get elected (unless the incumbent subsequently fell under a bus post-election). Interest began to fade, to the extent that, in 2012, there wasn’t much interest in candidacy. Indeed, in the East of England, where I chaired the shortlisting committee, there were so few applicants that they were all waved through to the membership ballot.

This time, it will be different. There will be no incumbents, and few of the ex-MEPs are expected to run (there are exceptions, I’m led to believe, but I don’t have any firm knowledge and, as a Returning Officer, I don’t see why I should promote them anyway). So, there is every possibility that new names may emerge and end up as Liberal Democrat MEPs. That means, potentially, more competition, on the basis that “it might be you”.

There are other factors in play too. The Party is far more conscious of the need to have more diverse candidates than it was in 1997 – gender was considered, but not ethnicity, for example. The evidence of the Spring Conference in York is that the mood of the Party has become more determined on that front.

So, as a Returning Officer, I expect to have a rather tougher job than I might have had in, say, 2012. How much tougher is, I guess, up to the membership…

Want to be a Liberal Democrat candidate for the 2019 European election? Not on the approved candidates list yet? You need to move fast!

It is hard to believe that, if all goes well, the advert seeking applications for consideration as a Liberal Democrat candidate for 2019 will go live in less than eleven weeks. Yes, less than eleven weeks. How do I know this? Because I've got the schedule, and I'm one of the Returning Officers (London, for those who didn't read yesterday's post - and it disappoints me how many of you don't hang on my every word...).

Given that so many of our members only joined the Party in the month after the May 2015 disaster, they are only now becoming eligible to attend a candidate development day and gain approval (strictly, if I recall correctly, you need to have renewed your membership to be eligible to attend such a development day, although you can submit the paperwork before then). So, for all of those keen, probably young, people, time is of the essence.

However, regardless of your age, or length of membership, if you want to be a European candidate in 2019, you perhaps ought to start thinking about it now. Yes, I know that there are Police and Crime Commissioner elections, Assembly elections in London and Wales, and Parliamentary elections in Scotland, plus local elections in scattered locations across the English counties, and I would be the last to suggest that anyone should lose focus on those, or even the European referendum that follows but, if you do want to be a contender, a small investment of time spent coming up with a strategy that will guide your moves over the months to come might help you achieve a good result.

If you aren't on the approved list, the earlier you get your application form in, the better. Regional and State Candidates Chairs will need to organize development days, and the more notice they have of likely demand, the better, for you, and for them. Remember, a development day is not that easy to organize, or prepare for, and you may only get one shot at it to meet the deadline for this selection (you can, of course, have another go in time for the Westminster selections that will follow).

So, contact Candidates Office at Party HQ, ask them to send you the forms and make sure that you fill them in and return them promptly. My fellow Returning Officers and I look forward to welcoming you to the wonderful world of European candidate selections...

A title that includes English Candidates Committee and stupidity - 30 October 2015

A fare structure mystery in Benelux

Why is it that crossing the Belgium-Luxembourg border by train is so expensive? To travel from Gouvy, the last Belgian station on the Liege to Luxembourg route, to Luxembourg City costs €40 first class. Six minutes down the line, at Troisvierges, it's just €4. Go figure...

And, talking of Luxembourg...

It's actually rather lovely here, with the trees turning from green to red and gold. It's also bigger than I remember, as my train from Troisvierges took more than an hour to reach Luxembourg City. And no, the train isn't slow...

On this day in... 2007

There have been more absurd rulings in the history of the Party's candidate selections, but the 2007 ruling that endorsements for a leadership candidate also represented a potential endorsement by the leadership candidate of the person endorsing them was undoubtedly one of the worst. And, as a Returning Officer, I did what any proper liberal would do - I ignored it. And, given the utter mess that the English Party is making of the Police and Crime Commissioner selections at the moment...

Liberal Democrats, candidates and diversity (part 2) - why do so few people apply to be Parliamentary candidates?

Yesterday, I took a look back at some of what has happened over the past decade. Today, I want to start to explore some of the general barriers that prevent many perfectly capable people from playing an active role in national politics.

Let's start at the beginning (as Julie Andrews put it, a very good place to start). To be a Parliamentary candidate, one rather needs to be a member of a political party - the almost total lack of success of independents since the introduction of universal suffrage (and political parties were relatively loosely affiliated until the mid-nineteenth century) demonstrates only too powerfully that, if you want to be an MP, you need friends, supporters and, most importantly, a structure which makes use of resources effectively.

There was a time when people joined political parties in large numbers. In the 1950’s, Conservative Party membership peaked at nearly 3,000,000, whilst Labour Party membership was just over 1,000,000. Liberal Party membership data appears only to go back to the beginning of the sixties, but at that time, the Party had a membership in excess of 250,000. Many more people were at least affiliated to a political movement, regardless of the level of their active involvement and, theoretically, the pool of potential candidates was much larger.

Those membership figures have declined so dramatically over the subsequent half-century that, if replicated in most other volunteer-based organisations, the word ‘crisis’ would barely cover it. Conservative Party membership is now about 134,000 – down more than 95% from its peak – and Labour claim 190,000 – down more than 80% - whilst the Liberal Democrats claim about 45,000 – down more than 80% as well.

So, a much smaller pool of potential candidates is one reason why ‘ordinary’ people don’t enter Parliament – ‘ordinary’ people don’t join political parties any more.

Being a Parliamentary candidate is resource intensive. Attending meetings, campaigning, organising, developing strategy – all of these things take time, and in our increasingly hectic world, many people are time poor or. With both elements of a couple now working in most cases, all of the other stuff that needs to get done, childcare, housework, shopping, for example, falls more equally than it did in the fifties, when a wife was far more likely to be at home to do all of those things, and there is far less time to do it all.

At the end of a long day, the idea of going out to meet strangers, some of whom are likely to be less than entirely welcoming, and persuade them to vote for you is a tough sell. And, as membership levels drop, your party has less support to offer, so you’ll be doing more and more of yourself.

Increasingly, the expectation is that candidates will be more and more full-time as a campaign approaches, which means giving up income, if you are lucky enough to be self-employed, or perhaps your job, if it is impossible to combine extensive campaigning with it. That means a significant drop in household income, which may require you to have significant savings to tide you over, or for your partner to earn enough to tide you both over, or the accrual of debt. I know of candidates who have taken years to repair their finances after an intensive campaign to win a Parliamentary seat.

I remember one former MP remarking that, before he won his seat, he had spent over £30,000 of his own money campaigning, and that he didn’t think that he was alone in that regard. Travelling the country to approval and selection meetings, attending training sessions and party conferences, buying clothes that make you look the part – the public can be so shallow like that – none of these come cheap, and that’s before you become the candidate for a winnable seat.

There aren’t many 'ordinary' people who have the means, let alone the will, to spend that much money just to create the possibility of becoming an MP – how many people do you know who have that much money to hand, and how representative of the wider community are they likely to be?

And, if you belong to a political party which is less likely to have safe seats, the risk/reward calculation is even less promising...

Liberal Democrats, candidates and diversity (part 1) - a look back over my shoulder

It's been about a decade since I returned to what I would describe as active involvement within the Liberal Democrats after a partly, but not wholly, self-imposed exile, and one of the common threads in that time has been the issue of diversity, especially in relation to Parliamentary candidacy. This can be broken into two parts - gender and ethnicity.

In some ways, gender has been easier to deal with, even if the results have not reflected the efforts made. All of the data that I saw in my time as a member of the English Candidates Committee indicated that, the rate at which women were approved and selected was broadly reflective of the rate at which they applied. Indeed, women appeared slightly more likely to succeed in getting approved, and marginally more successful at getting selected, than their male counterparts. It just appeared that, for reasons that have never become clear to me, that they weren't able to get through the one process that the Party doesn't control, i.e. the electorate.

In 2010, a number of excellent women candidates were selected to contest either top target seats or held seats where a male incumbent had chosen to retire.  And, had they been elected, the gender balance of the Commons Parliamentary Party would have been radically better than it now is.

Ethnicity, on the other hand, has proved to be more difficult. Given that the gender split amongst the population at large is broadly even everywhere, getting the processes right should mean that the outcome is broadly reflective of the community in the most simplistic sense. However, ethnicity is not homogeneous, nor are BAME communities evenly spread across the country. There isn't even a satisfactory definition of BAME that, in process terms, you can comfortably rely upon.

In Brent North, where I grew up, the various South Asian communities form nearly half of the population and Brent as a whole is a white minority borough. You might reasonably expect BAME candidates to be prominent and highly likely to be selected and elected. I now live in Bury St Edmunds, with a BAME population nearer 2%. If you believe that politics should reflect the community, then having one BAME district councillor might be a reasonable statistical outcome.

Therefore, if you want to take affirmative action, the nature of that action might be different in London than it might be in Suffolk. And yet, the Party's first effort at affirmative action, for the European Parliamentary selections in 2012, offered up the blunt instrument of a guaranteed place on the list in every Region. Worse still, it offered the illusionary benefit of being selected to be a candidate whilst offering no guarantee that any such candidate could be elected.

History shows that, even if you were top of your Regional list, you weren't going to get elected given the catastrophe that was the Liberal Democrat result in 2014, but even if our vote had trebled, it isn't clear to me that any BAME candidate would have been elected anyway. One might have given respectable marks for trying, but I would have failed the initiative for proportionality, process and outcome.

So, what are the problems, and are there any possible solutions out there?

Of course, it's your fault that politics is the preserve of lying toerags...

That is, I admit, a controversial statement. And, not unreasonably, you would expect me to have a justification for making it. It's just that the comment isn't intended for you, gentle reader.

You see, by the very fact that you're reading this, it is likely that you engage with, and take part in, our political system - most readers have come to this blog via the Liberal Democrat blog aggregator run by one of politics' unsung heroes, Ryan Cullen, who created it and manages it to this day. Some of you come via Twitter - all posts here are 'advertised' on my Twitter feed - and others because, occasionally someone out there likes something I have written and transmits it on to their audience (it is appreciated, so that you know).

It's everyone else that I'm a bit critical of. Yes, everyone is to blame, if you want me to be entirely honest. Politicians who make claims in the almost certain knowledge that, whilst they may be what you want, may not be possible, or even sensible, journalists who distort the agenda, misrepresent what has been said, wilfully set politicians and sections of the community against each other and can't be bothered to do even basic research before making claims, and members of the public who say one thing and vote for another.

A few days ago, I wrote asking why anyone would want to be a Liberal Democrat Parliamentary candidate and a comment was posted, noting that ordinary people were, effectively, excluded from the political structures at national level, if you like, that ordinary people cannot become MPs.

This is true, to a degree, but it has nearly always been true. Does anyone remember a golden era when 'normal' people (whatever that means) were massively represented in Parliament? When the Labour Representation Committee was formed, vast numbers of ordinary people didn't even have the right to vote. and, until MPs started to be paid a salary, it was only the independently wealthy and those who had someone to support them, who could even consider doing it. Now, when even significant numbers of Labour front benchers are millionaires, can it be said that ordinary people get a look in?

Once upon a time, ordinary people joined political parties, were part of the process by which candidates were selected, had direct access to politicians to some extent. Now, they don't join, and the field of potential parliamentary candidates, and therefore MPs, is so much smaller. Someone claimed recently that more people go dogging in this country than are members of a political party, and whilst I am sceptical about the accuracy of that claim, the fact that it could be made and many would ask, "can that be true?", with genuine doubt, should worry all of us.

Assuming that only members of political parties are likely to become MPs, the chance of a random person becoming an MP is already less than 1%, before you start to rule out those political party members who join for social reasons, or are ineligible to run, or even have no interest in being a candidate at any level, let alone Westminster. It is, a very small, almost self-selecting field and, if you aren't a member of a party, you have conceded the field to them, effectively. And, many of you tell me, they're lying toerags. Well, you left them there...

So, I ought to examine some of the issues surrounding this, because it seems harsh to blame you and then walk away...

Who'd be a Liberal Democrat Parliamentary candidate, eh?

In my spare time I have, for many years, performed the role of Returning Officer for Local Parties across the South East and, latterly, East of England. The job has seldom been glamorous, there are rarely hordes of candidates to consider - even in the good times - and there are inevitably seats where a candidate is parachuted in late in the day.

This year, however, it has been particularly trying in some ways for, whilst the quality of applicants has remained high, the quantity has become troublingly low. In some parts of the country, advertisements have gone unanswered and Local Parties who rely on having a PPC as a focus for their campaigning are having to make other arrangements.

In truth, though, we've never had a vast pool of wannabe Parliamentary candidates, even at the best of times, and heaven knows, these aren't them. And, with less to be optimistic about, it is harder to persuade candidates to come forward and commit to months, maybe years, of hard work in the run-up to a General Election. I can't blame them, personally.

Our main rivals don't appear to have such difficulties. Conservatives and Labour can offer safe seats, or career progression through relatively hopeless seats, in a way that we simply can't, or have the advantage of such strongly held views in hopeless areas that a candidate can be found. UKIP, because I only feel it right to (at least for the meantime) treat them as one of four major parties in England, have the passion of what they see as a great crusade to attract candidates.

Liberal Democrats, being the sort of people who think about such things have a degree of dispassion, are therefore less likely to be swept up in a burning desire to be a candidate. Often, in my experience, they consider it as something to be slotted into the rest of their lives and, given the likely costs - emotional, physical and financial - opt out. It appears, on the face of it, that you require a particularly single-minded focus in order to win a seat for the Liberal Democrats, a point that has often been noted in the past.

Ironically, that apparent requirement for borderline fanaticism acts as a disincentive for candidature, as we Liberal Democrats don't really do that - it isn't part of our DNA. The fact that it isn't entirely true is beside the point. Yes, a candidate in a winnable seat will have to work hard, very hard indeed, and they might not gain much, if any, reward at the end of it, but most of us always knew that anyway.

It never appealed to me - putting aside the nature of my other commitments - as I just couldn't muster the dedication and, now that I am exposed to the life of my Parliamentarian, albeit through the eyes of my wife, the life of an MP appears even less attractive, as a number of 2010 entrants to the Commons have already decided.

So, perhaps we need to look at this as a learning experience for the 2020 General Election, exploring ways in which candidates can have a better experience, finding more efficient ways of campaigning, and enabling a more diverse pool of potential candidates - something for our Presidential candidates to think about, might I suggest?

UPDATED: South Suffolk Liberal Democrats select Grace Weaver as their prospective candidate for 2015

And so to Hadleigh, on a day somewhat confused as to the time of year. Ros drove me through her old County division through heavy rain and bright sunshine to the County Library, where members were gathering to anoint a new Prospective Parliamentary Candidate.

As a Returning Officer, I take a relatively relaxed view as to process, especially when I know the Local Party involved and can be confident that, even if things don't run entirely as planned, applicants won't be disadvantaged. So, the speech phase safely negotiated, when the question and answer session turned into more of a group discussion, I sat back quietly, ready to intervene if required to do so. After all, it is useful for potential candidates to find out how their Local Party thinks and feels.

Eventually, I did feel that I needed to gently remind some members that they were there to question candidates, not each other, but despite that, after an hour, it was time to issue ballot papers and then count them.

Luckily, it wasn't a complex count, and I was able to declare Grace Weaver as the new PPC for South Suffolk. I'm sure that she'll do well, especially as she has strong ties to the area, having been educated in East Bergholt. The Local Party seem to be pleased with their choice, and I look forward to hearing good things from the Stour Valley and the Shotley Peninsula in the months to come...

And Grace herself has now commented on her selection, via Twitter;

Overjoyed to be selected as @LibDems PPC for South Suffolk where I grew up
— Grace Weaver (@gracelibdem) July 5, 2014

South Cambridgeshire Liberal Democrats select a PPC

It has been a very busy week. I had been looking forward to a relatively quiet week until my phone rang on Friday, asking me if I would be willing to be the Returning Officer for South Cambridgeshire. I wasn't keen - I'm already dealing with two selections, but it was explained that this was urgent, and would need to be done quickly, as a by-election was potentially in the offing.

And so, an expedited selection took place. I probably can't tell you how it works - the details are available on request but not otherwise available, but what I can say is that, from publication of advert to result, it took less than one hundred and forty-eight hours.

Hilary Clinton once famously wrote that it takes a village to raise a child. Well, as a Returning Officer, I can tell you that it takes a village to select a potential by-election candidate - with the goodwill of shortlisting committee members, by-election panellists, Candidates Office, Membership Services, the Campaigns Department and some hard-pressed but highly motivated applicants. And, in this case, a baroness.

In the middle of this, armed only with a set of rules and a protocol, sits the Returning Officer. Queries regarding procedure, questions regarding membership issues, hustings organisation and all manner of things must be answered courteously and swiftly, paperwork prepared and distributed, candidates informed and nurtured.

There are some consolations. There is no appeal process, so the Returning Officer is, in a small way, the ruling deity of Planet Selection. Actually, that's the only certain consolation although everyone else made the process so much more pleasant than it might have been - and here I pay tribute to the shortlisting committee, who I would happily bring home with me.

And so, this evening, accompanied by Ros, who was to chair the members' meeting, I went to a village just outside Cambridge, where a very decent crowd, all things considered, gathered to select a prospective by-election candidate.

It tells you a lot about the way social media can spread news more quickly than ever before, that, as the Returning Officer, I have been scooped by Jonathan Calder and by the Cambridge News, but I should congratulate Sebastian Kindersley on his adoption as the candidate, after a very high-class hustings with excellent performances by all three short-listed applicants.

A day in the life of a Returning Officer

It has been rather busy over the past week, through no real fault of my own, apart from saying, "Alright, I'll do it.". In respect, that might not have been entirely the most sensible thing for me to do.

But, despite everything, I've made it to the penultimate day of the process. Candidates are campaigning, my ballot box is assembled, with a silica gel packet at the bottom to absorb moisture, ballot papers have been printed, a membership list is printed and noted with the names of all those who need to renew their membership before being able to vote. I've e-mailed a copy of the Selection Rules to my Kindle so that I have it available to me if I need them, as well as an archive of e-mail in case there is a problem.

All is calm for the time being, and the sun is shining. I've even managed to find time to assemble a piece of garden furniture, string up some garden lights and go to the gym - Ros made me (a bit).

It probably can't last...

Spatial intelligence and the Returning Officer... (the chamber ensemble mix)

So, there I was, vaguely thinking about candidate selection, when my Twitter feed was suddenly disturbed by talk of Question Time, most of it disapproving as usual (David Starkey? Really?). But amidst the despair, one comment caught my attention like a brightly coloured fish.

Belinda Brooks-Gordon, one of my Region's candidates for Europe, asked why no-one ever looks at how candidates are selected, suggesting that you could 'degender' them. I was intrigued, so I asked what she meant. An intriguing Twitter conversation followed, in which we were joined by Jennie Rigg, and it got me thinking. In the search for equality of outcome, have I rather forgotten for whom the outcome is intended?

Let me explain. As a Returning Officer, the aim is to develop, and manage, a process whereby each candidate is treated the same, a process which can be defended against appeal. And that, of course, is good for Returning Officers, easy to operate, ticks all the appropriate bureaucratic boxes, etc., etc. But does it serve the candidates or, for that matter, the members that well? Suddenly, I'm not so sure...

Designing a simple process that doesn't discriminate is difficult, so perhaps I shouldn't try. Instead, why not offer candidates equality of opportunity? I could offer each candidate a slot which they could use as they prefer, giving a presentation, or a speech, or simply having a conversation with members, playing to their strengths as they see fit. It does offer a challenge to members, in that a direct comparison is more complex, but is that such a bad thing?

So, does that avoid inadvertent discrimination or bias on the part of the process, and will it lead to the selection of a more diverse range of candidates? Well, we'll never know unless we try...

European Selection Diary: Day 7 - Hello? Hello? Is there anybody out there?

Now that I am able to sleep like a normal human being again (that is not to say that I will, but I could if I wanted to), there is a little time to reflect.

In the past three list selections, I have been the Returning Officer, dealing with the influx of requests for application packs and the like, and so have had a pretty good idea what is happening. As Chair of the Shortlisting Committee, all I know is what our Returning Officer is willing to tell me, so I'm not as well-informed as I might otherwise wish. All I can do is wait...

However, there are things to ponder about. Will we have enough, indeed any, women candidates? Will BAME applicants emerge to take part? And how much effort should I make to do something about that?

There is a conflict of interest, in that as Chair of the Shortlisting Committee, I must remain strictly neutral. However, if I am expected to seek out women and BAME applicants, and encourage them to take part, does that not engender a sense of obligation on my part, in that, having gently twisted their arms to compete, it would be unfair to then reject them.

So, if I can't actively encourage them, what can I do? Well, having mulled over the question, I have concluded that I can ask what the relevant 'lobby groups' are doing, i.e. the Ethnic Minority Liberal Democrats, the Campaign for Gender Balance and the Women Liberal Democrats. After all, one of their roles is to support and encourage, isn't it? And it would surely be better coming from them, I feel.

Doubtless, when this is over, there will be another round of recriminations diversity. As a shortlisting committee, we can, and will, do everything in our power to make all applicants feel comfortable. But we can't campaign for them and, unless they can beat an incumbent MEP (very unlikely), or are prominent in a Region without an incumbent, their chances of ultimate success are relatively slim.

Applicants might be better off thinking about the Shortlisting in terms of a long-term strategy. Building a campaign team and across six counties doesn't happen overnight, it takes months and indeed years of networking, building links, making friends, which you then utilise when the campaign starts. And despite the fact that I've been pointing this out for a decade, very few people appear to listen.

But, if you are interested in being a European candidate, regardless of who you are, or where you come from, do think about applying. We want the very best lists we can construct, and we want to draw on all of the talent that we know is out there. And I'm sure that I speak for the whole Region when I say that...

Rules for the selection of parliamentary candidates in England: an introduction

Overview of the process

In order to ensure that all constituencies have an appropriately approved and democratically selected candidate for a General Election Article 11 of the Federal Constitution specifies that all states shall agree a fair selection process. These rules govern that process and must be used by all Local Parties in England for the purpose of selecting Parliamentary Candidates.

Constituencies starting the process of selection must ask their Regional Candidates’ Chair (RCC) to appoint an independent Returning Officer (RO) from outside the constituency. The local party executive will agree the appointment of a shortlisting committee with the Returning Officer. The Returning Officer will then work with the shortlisting committee to ensure that the selection process is completed satisfactorily in accordance with these rules.

Phase 1: The shortlisting committee and Returning Officer work together to prepare an application pack and advertise the seat.

 

Phase 2: The shortlisting committee scrutinise applications and shortlist applicants for the selection.

 

Phase 3: The candidates’ campaign: members’ mailing, leaflets and personal contact. Postal votes applied for and sent out by the Returning Officer.

 

Phase 4: The hustings meeting, vote and count. The result is declared.