Any thoughts?
I'm just about to interview the Culture Minister David Lammy. He wants Gordon Brown and the deputy leadership candidates to consider the imposition of all-black shortlists to increase the number of non-white MPs. He says there should be 51 ethnic minority MPs . He wants the same efforts put in as were employed with the all -women shortlists.
What do you think?
Also live on the programme this evening I'll be talking to the head master who has employed a private detective to spy on parents suspected of lying about where they live - just so they can get into his school ( St George's in Harpenden). Have you ever given a false address in order to get into the school of your choice? What do you think of people who do. And do you think Norman Hoare, the headteacher, is right to go on early morning and late night stake-outs of flats and houses of potential applicants to see if they really live where they say they do.
I'd love to know your thoughts.
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Sequin...none at the moment.
But congratulatons, Friday Newsletter arrived at 12:04, you must let Eddie know your secret!!
Poor dear is beside himself worrying about it not turning up...ttfn
Oh Sequin - I fear you have unleashed a container of small squirmy things, or should I say Mr Lammy has.
I'm not sure exclusive short lists are the answer. Yes, our political system should be representative of the population as a whole but not if that means that the best person for the job is excluded (all a bit reminiscent of the junior doctors debacle!)
As for the school - is it privately funded?
re:1:tags?
Good grief - academic espionage! Whatever next? Asking local estate agents how long they've lived in their house to determine whether they're long term residents or simply moved in to get a place at the school?
Has the Daily Wail heard of this yet? They'd probably be able to devote column acerage to it (let's face it, that paper has long had the editorial policy of Chicken Licken)...
Newsletter arrived around 12.20 in my inbox, time stamped 11.44. I take this is a warm up for a sharp and upto the minute programme at 5
Regards
John
I can't believe it -- early morning and late night stake outs!! Is he demented?
Surely all the proof can be gathered from the electoral roll - to verify that they say who they are -- they should be required to bring a passport - driving licence or some other proof!
Spying on them!! this is surely breaching the law in some other way!
I'm very shocked.
WW
I thought ALL schools were privately funded?
When our children were growing up we were very actively involved with the PTA Fund raising. The heads of our primary and comprehensive openly admitted that without the funds from the PTA that they would not have been able to meet the minimum teaching standards. They would have been unable to purchase the 'luxuries' needed to meet the curriculum.
But perhaps things have changed now we are in the 21st century?
What goes to the FA Cup final every year and never gets used?
No shortlists. At all. No-one should be coerced to vote for someone they don't want. Whether as a putative candidate or for a real election. Forcing this kind of thing on people is wrong.
And surely the candidates themselves would rather be known simply as the 'Best candidate', not 'Best Black/Asian/Woman/some-other-category candidate'. It diminishes the status of a candidate if it is known that s/he only got the job because someone artificially restricted the list. They cannot look you in the eye and legitimately say that they were the best one for the job.
What next? Catholic shortlists and Protestant shortlists, Jewish and Islamic shortlists, gay shortlists and hetero shortlists, artists shortlists and engineers shortlists. Where exactly does one draw the line? And who decides what is acceptable and what is not?
There is no such thing as positive discrimination. There is only discrimination, pure and simple.
I can't find the words to get the next bit across properly so please accept that there is no malice intended;
Mind you (being sarcastic here) it makes Oona King very palatable as a candidate to the local and national party machines. Select her and you can tick the boxes for 'Black', 'Woman' and 'Jewish'. That'll boost the numbers.
Finished being sarcastic now. Why not ask her what she thinks? She can speak from a number of different positions for precisely those reasons.Would she rather be selected as the best candidate? Or would she like to force her way onto a shortlist based on her colour?
No selection except on pure merit. Anything else is damaging to the quality of democracy.
Si.
Sequin, well done on getting the newsletter out before the programme, thus proving that if you want something done, ask a busy woman!
I have never been a supporter of exclusive shortlists - I think they reflect badly on the candidates, due to no fault of their own, but rather the fault of the institution which failed to engage them in the usual course of the selection process.
DI W -
Ah yes, good point? What do you think your PTA would've made of this?
To be honest I can't quite believe it but its a striking indictment about the state of the education system. Did our new PM mention something about having a passion for education??
Newsletter arrived
(from majordom@localhost) by lists2.mh.bbc.co.uk (8.12.10/8.12.10) id l4IAnOf6008920 for pm-outgoing; Fri, 18 May 2007 11:49:24 +0100 (BST)
and, after more than an hour:
(from root@localhost) by lists.bbc.co.uk (8.12.11/8.12.10) id l4IBv9x7001359 for tipiglen@btconnect.com; Fri, 18 May 2007 12:57:09 +0100 (BST)
Here at 12:57:12 3 seconds after it left the catacombs...
xx
ed
On point 1 - I totally disagree with that philisophy. I am absolutely in favour of equal opportunities for all; men, women, blacks, whites etc etc. But this is just yet another example of PC gone made! Why exactly SHOULD there be 51 ethnic minority MPs? Is there some scientific formula which states the country will be a better place with that exact number? Is just too radical to think "lets just get the very best people for the job, regardless of colour, class or creed?" This sort of thinking does nothing for racial or gender integration at all - it simply causes divides and resentments - e.g. you only got the job because you are black/a woman/a black woman etc etc (I think you get my drfit!)
On point 2 - I haven't done so as yet (my own children are years away from secondary educations), however - would I rule it out? Absolutely not! It is not something I would ever want to do but if I had to take extreme steps in order to make the difference between my children having a sub-standard education and a good education then yes I'm afraid I would. The problem is that there are far too many people and not enough school places in certain areas. Where we live now there has been loads of development in the last few years with brand new family homes springing up everywhere. But are there brand new schools springing up to accomodate these brand new families with their children? - no! Efforts should be made in bringing ALL schools up to a certain standard and ensuring there are enough places for all so that parents don't have to reduce themselves to lies and deceipt to get what all children deserve, a decent education. And I don't agree that Norman Hoare should be spying on anyone. He should concentrate on giving the children in his trust the very best education and let the powers that be resolve the underlying issues that cause parents to take such action. All he is doing is creating a sense of mistrust.
All sounds like it will be a very interesting programme tonight!
mmitfh @4
How dare you knock such a British institution as the Daily Wail..I am speechless!!
What would we use to wrap our fish suppers in if it wasn't for such a fine august organ being published daily?
tsch..tsch..what are you thinking.
Disgusted of East Grinstead. GSM, CDM and bar.
Mr. Lammy wants to see all-black short lists to achieve a target number of MPs from ethnic minorities. How actually is that supposed to work? Just because one party has a black candidate does not mean that the voters in that constituency will necessarily elect him or her. Or is the proposal that all parties who wish to stand in certain constituencies will have imposed upon them the need to select their candidates from all-black shortlists? Like I said, how is that supposed to work?
H.
I'd be against all-anything shortlists, but perhaps a requirement to try to have a fully representational shortlist appropriate to the constituency, though I realise that, too, could become extremely unwieldy!
However, if a proposed shortlist is composed entirely of white males, I think it would be a good idea if this was scrutinised carefully to see just why this has occurred, whatever the regional ethnic mix, and in areas where the constituency has a higher than 50% proportion of non- white constituents, then the same scrutiny should be applied.
Possibly this is a good case for constituency parties organising open meetings where potential candidates can engage with the public and demonstrate how acceptable or otherwise they may be as future representatives of that constituency?
As the headmaster who is spying on parents: I can understand his frustrations, but I'm not sure he should be going to these lengths.
WW @ 11
re Did our new PM mention something about having a passion for education??
probably because he is is quite unedu....
Mr Brown was born in 1951 and educated at Kirkcaldy High School and Edinburgh University where he gained 1st Class Honours and then a Doctorate.....in what for crying out loud.
He has hardly had any exposure to a real world, poor lad would probably 'cack' his pants if he found himself out of a job in Parli't...one can only hope I suppose.
sorry to sound so bitter and twisted...I AM....!!
Re Jimmy (8) The ribbons, in the colours of the losing team, to tie on the cup at the end of the match are always taken to the FA Cup final but never used.
H.
Si (and others), I'm not generally "for" positive discrimination, and I'm not going to argue that all-black shortlists are the answer to anything much. However, surely you accept the potential for a problem to exist? We are all subject to thinking and acting in terms of "norms" - this can be seen in prototype theory in language and psychology studies and in countless social observations - and what that means in practice is that we are all constantly carrying out our own little acts of "discrimination": discriminating in favour of the "familiar" over the "less familiar". I have no doubt that a fair few people on here will be much more successful at challenging their own ingrained views than the majority of people, but I don't honestly believe that it's possible not to have any in the first place. The question then is what can possibly be done about it? Those who propose all-black shortlists are at least proposing a solution - they argue that from a group of people who are all capable of doing the job, occasionally putting forward only the black candidates will help to change perceptions. More black (and other non-white) people may think to themselves "I can do that" and more people from all groups will have it burned into their subconscious that not all MPs have to be white. But if this proposal isn't the answer, then what is? The easy answer, I guess, is that you ignore it and pretend it isn't so. To do so, after all, is to believe that you are above such human frailties and can see the bright light of truth in any situation. Unfortunately, it also ignores the reality of how your brain works and what makes you a human bean. Please believe that I'm not criticising, I just wonder if it is possible to overcome such things without positive action.
Re: All-whatever-shortlists.
That's insane. Just the other night there was a Labour cvhap complaining about Blair-loyalists being "parachuted" into constituencies and now this.
Didn't Labour learn anything from Blaenau Gwent?
For those who don't know, the popular Labour MP, Peter Law, was prevented from standing due to the imposition of an all-women shortlist. Law left the party to stand as an independent and trounced the Labour "parachutist" Maggie Jones, *despite* spending much of the run-up to the election recovering from an operation on a brain tumour. That turned an 18000 vote majority for Labour into a 9000 vote majority for an Independent.
If the government is daft enough to try this again they're going to get thoroughly humiliated.
DI W - bitter? a voice of experience I think! :)
I'm rubbing my eyes: I dreamt I was at the station with Eddie, then we were together on the train (Nils on the platform in a fetching orange jacket), quadlattes to hand ..... It all seemed to real, but now it's vanished.
D I Wyman, Gordon Brown uneducated? What a bizarre thing to say. Or were you meaning that "university of life" stuff that some people without any formal qualifications like to talk about? Education, of course, isn't the same thing as intelligence. But one thing GB has in spades is education...
does this mean that white politicians cannot represent black constituents well enough?
if so, can black MPs represent white constituents well enough?
the stupidity of that question should offer some sort of answer.
The "problem" is that people from all aspects of society (black, brown, white, torquoise) don't think that they can be politicians (eg "surely that's the preserve of the upper classes??")
the solution is surely to tell people that they can be in power. again and again and again. And not undermine power by saying its anything to do with other than being the best candidate.
Otherwise it'll remain a dumb discussion about "them" and "us".
hardly a great basis for democracy.
On the subject of David Lammy .....
Did anybody out there see 'Scouting for Boys' (or whatever the programme was called) with Ian Hislop last night? DL, as an ex boy scout, was interviewed during the course of the programme and came across as quite a larf, and certainly a good sport. Is he as much fun to interview as Alan Johnson, I wonder?
Sequin's comments would be appreciated.