Friday 4 April 2014

An aim for 50% female candidates is not "PC Gone Mad". its an aim for godsake.


According to the Wasting Mule 


Cconcerns have been raised about a plan that could see male Labour councillors de-selected to achieve gender balance.
At the Welsh Labour conference in Llandudno last weekend, delegates accepted a proposal from the party’s Welsh executive to aim for 50% female candidates in winnable seats by the time of the next council elections in 2017.

The Mule seems to be sensationalising a story  and before we revert to the loony Left accusations look again and you will see  it as an aim

One Labour councillor from South Wales, who did not want to identified, said: 

“There is likely to be a big negative reaction to this when people realise what the implications are. It’s totally unfair to deselect councillors on gender grounds.
“In many cases seats have been made winnable by the hard work of sitting councillors, who have built up support over years. It doesn’t follow that the seat will be won by a candidate who is selected just because she is a woman.”


Jeff Jones, the former Labour leader of Bridgend council who is now a local government , and always available for a quote said: 


“This is gesture politics of the kind that plays right into the hands of Ukip.
“It’s an idea that is being promoted largely by middle-class feminists from Cardiff where it’s normal for candidates from one part of the city to stand in another part.
“In the rest of Wales. local government really is local, and if the party tries to import candidates from elsewhere to make sure of gender balance, they’ll end up losing the seat.
“Assuming that people will vote for you in a council election whoever you are, just because you represent a particular party, is insulting.
“People are not stupid. They will vote for people who they think will best represent their interests, whether they’re male or female, gay or straight, over 60 or under 60.
And this is very much a 1970s issue. The mass of people aren’t interested – they want to know what candidates have to say about education, the economy and whether they can get a decent home to live in.”

Except this as I wrote above appears to be an aim..and maybe as a a local government consultant he can explain the low number of female councillors in wales and propose how to increase it.


I am not one of those who subscribe to the notion more women in politics would  make it less conventional or they would be more caring.

Women politicians are as bad as their male counterparts when it comes  Yah boo politics.

But an increase in numbers might improve the talent pool of our councillors some of who should have been put out to grass years ago.

Why do we carry on wasting talent by not encouraging more female candidates.

Clearly to actually force 50% women  candidates by Labour would be political suicide  and I doubt very much they will even get close to that number.

But  all Parties should pay attention to this aim.

The Labour proposal is aim we all should support.

The problem is how to achieve this aim without resorting to coercion or the Male Dinosaurs jumping up and down crying "Its Political Correctness Gone Mad" , which appears to be endorsed by the Mule and Jeff Jones.





3 comments:

Best PC Case said...

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glynbeddau said...

I thought the above was praise but its a link to a company that sells cases to PC . laughable really.

Cibwr said...

Jeff Jones is an interesting personality, I remember him saying that the current devolution set up was a mistake and that Wales would have been better off as part of a greater merseyside region in the north and severnside region in the south....