Where is the Libdem commitment to equality?

Can a Shadow Cabinet tell us anything about its future politics? That, it would seem, depends on the party.

The Tories, for example, have been endlessly criticised for the makeup of their Cabinet because it is seen as being too white, male, and public school/Oxbridge educated. Cue much handwringing, the introduction of the ‘A-list’ of female candidates, and it does now look like the Conservatives are making real progress in this issue.

However, if you take a look at the Lib Dem Shadow Cabinet, you will notice that there are just two women in ministerial positions, Sarah Teather and Julia Goldsworthy, neither of which are particularly high profile.

Given that Sarah Teather is also in a perilously marginal seat after recent boundary changes, she may not even be there for much longer.

If you flick through the profiles of the rest of the candidates, you notice that while the private school bias is less pronounced than with the Tories, the otherwise uniformly white, middle-aged, male faces begin to merge into the ugly cliché of middle England. Some of us had hoped that the absolute domination of this sector of society was being phased out, even just superficially.

On the Oxbridge front, the team of Nick Clegg, Edward Davey, David Heath, Simon Hughes, David Laws, John Thurso, Steve Webb, and Roger Williams should give the sense that you are never far from Britain’s two most élite universities if there is a Lib Dem in the room.

Most incredibly, there are simply no members of the Lib Dem Cabinet from an ethnic minority whatsoever. Nick Clegg’s Dutch mother is about as foreign as it gets on the Liberal front bench.

This is all the more potent given the banner above on the website of “Clegg with the people”, which features citizens of varied race, age, and gender.

Yet, unlike the Conservatives, few people have criticised this state of affairs. If the problem is a Liberal disagreement with affirmative action, then they need to find a way that is equally as effective at promoting candidates and MPs from non-traditional backgrounds to the top of the party.

Whatever the Lib Dems claim to doing on this front, the visual evidence is undeniable. Dinti Batstone, the woman charged with addressing this issue, says all-female shortlists “discriminate against men”, which makes her sound like one of those women who were against the female vote.

Self-hating women aside, I’m sure the party doesn’t have a problem of ingrained sexism and racism, but equally they seem to be taking little action to combat serious problems of diversity. If this is how they treat their Cabinet, how on earth will they treat a mulitcultural country with large and distinct community groups?

I think we seem to be focussing far too much on Clegg as leader and forgetting that a government is made up of a team. Nick Clegg’s team is thirty or so people very much like Nick Clegg (though perhaps less photogenic), so much so that he may just as well have thirty clones of himself made to do the job properly.

If you are a woman, young, of an ethnic minority, or didn’t have an elite education, you might be asking where your place is in the Lib Dems. It certainly isn’t in their Cabinet.

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Jennifer is also on Twitter

Sarkozy humiliated in French elections

Sarkozyism is dead. French voters made it very clear this Sunday that any affinity they may once have had with their President is over. He has not made them richer, and he has not made them feel better about their country. With his abrasive personality and divisive insistence on a ‘National Identity Debate’, French voters were seeking someone they could feel less bullied by.

Furthermore, Sarkozy’s arch rival within his own party, Dominique de Villepin, has announced that he is breaking away from the UMP and will lead his own ‘movement’ from June onwards. All the supermodel wives in the world can’t make Sarko look good right now.

As a result of the elections, the Socialists now control 21 out of 22 of France’s departments, having taken Corsica away from Sarkozy’s UMP. However, they didn’t win this campaign through any solid policies or clear-sighted ideological progression. They won because no one can stand the short man in the Elysée Palace. This is clear from the rate of abstention, which stood at 53.6% in the first round and almost 50% in the second. Although stay-at-home voters hit the right harder, the overall disgust with politicians of all stripes in France is all too apparent in this figure. continue reading… »

The day without immigrants

On March 1st in France, immigrants were encouraged to stay at home, protest, and spend nothing as a nationwide protest against the country’s latent problems with immigration and national identity.

Peggy Derder, Nadir Dendoune and Nadia Lamarkbi, three French professionals in their thirties, hit upon the idea of la journée sans immigrés, or the day without immigrants, after years of endless police checks and discrimination. The trio were encouraging anyone who is an immigrant, of immigrant origin, or who feels solidarity with immigrants and wanted to contest their treatment to take these three simple measures for just one day. In a political system where there are no black or Arab representatives, despite the fact that these minorities make up 10% of the population, people of immigrant origin wanted to make their invisibility and silence symbolically evident in workplaces around France.

Their aim was to make their compatriots see how different their country would look and sound if France’s minorities did not exist. The demonstration also sought to highlight the economic contribution that minorities make, and the range of industries they operate within France. Demonstrators were hoping to empty offices, stop public transport and close stores. The idea quickly spread and similar demonstrations were seen in Spain, Italy, and Greece. continue reading… »