Women and BME members - should be seen and not heard in the Lib Dems?

Thanks to Jo Christie Smith for highlighting the issue from conference that had me most apoplectic. No, not the way the amendment to Make it Happen was misrepresented and thrown out (more about that later) tho that came a close second, it was the TOTAL misrepresentation of the diversity of the party in the debate. I am excluding the interventions since people self select, however, interesting that in self selection there were 3 BME members speaking and 2 women. I understand that 11 women and 56 men put in cards, ethnicity is not recorded but I know of at least 1 BME member who put in a card and was not called. Apparently in order to "balance the debate" we ended up with 26.79% of the men who put in cards and 9.09% of the women speaking. This would be laughable if it weren't so serious. The main underlying issue allegedly being argued over in the debate was how best to support those on low incomes. Now, earlier that day I had heard how twice as many young women as young men are living in poverty - and I would hazard a guess this is true across the adult age spectrum. If you are from a BME community, or are disabled, you are also far more likely to be living in poverty. So, I think we have established that this is an issue that disproportionately impacts on women, BME communities and those who are disabled. Right..........so let's yet again get a bunch of white middle class men deciding the best way forward!!!!

After the debate I was chatting to two white male friends who had the grace to admit that until I mentioned it, they hadn't noticed the lack of women or BME members........the exact same thing happened when I made the same complaint in the Meeting the Challenge debate (incidentally with the same chair, who clearly hasn't remembered). Then along came another apoplectic female PPC who shall remain nameless, who had put her card in 7th and still hadn't been called.

In the evening I was chatting to another BME female PPC, who said she hadn't put a card in because she didn't expect to be called - exactly - that's what happens, we get into the why bother? syndrome. What is the point of spending hours writing a speech knowing that your chances of being called in an important debate appear to diminish in direct relation to your gender and ethnicity? So whilst of course as women we perhaps need to be bolder in putting our cards in, the system, skewed as it is, has to take the bulk of the responsibility.

For those who missed what I said during FE questions (since the BBC mysteriously lost the sound!) my point was that there was no point publishing stats about diversity when one of our most public forums, namely the televising of the most controversial debate at conference, reinforces an image of a white male middle class party, something pointed out to me by a non Lib Dem female friend who had been watching at home. Simon Hughes in his speech earlier in the day had rightly been bemoaning the fact that we still only have 1 in 6 women MPs, but if our first priority in important high profile debates is to have the "big hitters" namely parliamentarians, who are yes, predominantly male and almost entirely white, getting the first bite of the tiny cherry, WE WILL NEVER EVER CHANGE ANYTHING!!!!! If we always do what we have always done, we'll always get what we always got. Now, credit to Simon, who in my view has done far more than anyone in our party to improve our diversity, but there is only one of him, the responsibility falls to us all. And credit to Nick Clegg, who I know takes the issue very seriously which he has demonstrated by appointing Meral Ece and Fiyaz Mughal as special advisers. But, this has to be a root and branch approach. It is insulting and disrespectful in the extreme to Nick and Simon to allow such a travesty of all we say we believe in and stand for, to take place.

A couple of years ago when walking into the conference hall before the leader's speech with Fiyaz, we were asked to go and sit near the front. This was apparently to be in the eye of the camera, to demonstrate our diversity as a party. Now, frankly, of course we need to be SEEN to be diverse, but please, are we to be treated like Victorian children, wheeled out in our pretty clothes, perpetually SEEN and when it counts never HEARD?

Simon is asking Duncan Brack as chair of FCC to produce a report of explanation to FE, I welcome this. I trust (and will be writing to Simon as chair of FE to ask) that this will result in REAL and meaningful change. If this ever happens again in an important debate I give due warning that I will mount my own one woman demonstration from the floor - as Laurence Boyce would say, don't forget I used to be in the army!