You can't teach an old dog new tricks
Quote of the Week: Labour's All-women shortlist in the Vale of Glamorgan.
A female member of the Vale of Glamorgan Labour party wrote to the South Wales Echo saying:
“I know there is a silent majority of local Labour members who would oppose the imposition of a women-only shortlist for the selection of our candidate to replace John Smith. It is what I can only describe as bullying tactics from the National Executive which forced the local party to succumb to this policy.
“The polls indicate that the fight to return a Labour MP for the Vale of Glamorgan will be extremely difficult. Our chances of success would have been greater if we had the option of selecting a candidate from all our membership and not just from female members. Our candidate should be the best person, not just the best woman or best man.”
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2 comments:
Something needs to be done to encourage both female and BME candidates to stand for public office across all parties to redress the imbalance, but not at the expense of quality and merit. Under-represented groups do not benefit from tokenism and neither does society. We want the best people for the job, in the job - whoever and whatever they are.
Meanwhile, in Leyton & Wanstead, Iain Dale reports that Mr Harman, Jack Dromey, may just be able to circumvent the AWS.
One rule for us plebs, another for the Labour elite.
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