Rebutting the rebuttal

Well, folks, we have ourselves a good old blogosphere argument: Kez has entered the debate on All-Women Shortlists. Now, I enjoy these occasions as it's an opportunity to take an issue and analyse the living crap out of it... possibly proof of my invocation of Holmesian sociolinguistics.

Firstly, I'd like to refute any notion of my previous posts on the matter being 'offensive tripe'. My foray into gender-based communication - i.e. the argument that the two genders communicate differently and as such hold distinct skills, all of which have their uses in our political system - was developed from a theory ('private speakers' versus 'public speakers') espoused by the likes of Janet Holmes and Miriam Meyerhoff - experts in the field of language and gender and definitely not misogynists! It is not offensive to suggest that men and women do things differently. It is only offensive when that suggestion carries the assumption that one of the groups is doing things wrong. Given my argument that the two genders have different communication skills that prove useful is different areas of political life - so acknowledging the strengths and weaknesses of both genders - I feel vindicated by my suggestion that it's now an automatic reflex to brand someone challenging the idea of the AWS as sexist. Even when it's blatantly obvious that they are not. To label me a misogynist for my views on gender and communication is to accuse Professors Holmes and Meyerhoff of self-loathing.

Anyway.

"...The Labour Party's current policy - led by Harriet Harman - is that all seats where the incumbent Labour MP is standing down should be all women shortlists."

Is Gregg McClymont, the Labour PPC in Cumbernauld, Kilsyth & Kirkintilloch East (where Rosemary McKenna is standing down), a woman?

"Each Constituency Labour Party elects its own candidate. It is simply untrue to say that you piss off your activists with an AWS."

Tell that to activists in Blaenau Gwent and East Lothian.

"I'm fed up hearing that democracy has somehow been overted by the imposition of an all women shortlist."

If I were being pedantic, I would point out that 'overt' is not a verb, but even if it were, it would surely mean to open something up which is the Great Assertion in favour of AWS! My guess is that Kez was trying to dismiss the idea that democracy is subverted by the concept. Well, let me spell this out: it is artificially restricting the pool of potential candidates in an election. It is not using merit as the first consideration for whether or not someone should be able to stand. The first question now used to vet potential candidates is "Do you have a penis?", and anyone who answers in the affirmative is ruled out of the running. That is certainly not meritocratic, and it's not democratic either: if the boot were placed back on the other foot (where it resided either in law or in practice or both for centuries) there would, quite rightly, be an outcry. Kez will just have to get used to hearing this line... only the people discussing it will, I'm sure, use real verbs.

"Nobody in this debate seems capable of addressing the fundamental issue which is that of the decline in the membership of political parties. Of what ever political colour and ilk, people just simply do not join political parties in the same way any more. Yet those that remain decide who represents their party and often in a safe seat, who represents that constituency in Parliament.

"To be brutally honest, there's something not quite right about a room full of 100 people selecting the candidate to represent 75,000 people."

I agree. But two things spring to mind: firstly, where is the evidence that AWS has arrested that decline, and secondly, surely that is an argument for open primaries, rather than an AWS?

"I'd love to know how many SNP people took part in the selection of George Kerevan in Edinburgh East? I'd love to know how many Lib Dems voted for Fred MacIntosh in Edinburgh South. Was there even a contest? Or simply a right of passage?

"Until we reignite the fire behind party politics or change the way we select our candidates - nobody is on solid ground to argue that all women short-lists are undemocratic."

I would imagine that the Edinburgh SNP selection was arranged rapidly: in preparation for the election that never came. What I know for sure is that following the 2003 candidate selection debacle, the rules changed so that under normal circumstances, candidates were chosen by OMOV: this has happened to select the SNP's European Candidates: the shortlist was narrowed down at Conference - where every delegate had a vote - while the final ranking determined by the enitre Party membership, and every candidate had an equal chance of coming first regardless of incumbency. This is in stark contrast to Labour, where the candidate ranked third actually outpolled the top two, but was prevented from overtaking them simply because they are sitting MEPs.

Now consider that: Mary Lockhart has been held back in third place despite outpolling 'first-placed' David Martin. That does make a mockery of Labour's gender equality mission, doesn't it?

And of course, while I'm not sure how we widen political participation across the board (though giving the most popular candidate first place on a Party list might help), I have every right to call an undemocratic process undemocratic. I might not be sure how to move forwards but I can at least recognise a retrograde step and oppose it.

"Let me be clear again - nobody is getting parachuted in from anywhere! The Labour Party takes great pride in the importance of a constituency link."

So Maggie Jones wasn't parachuted? So John Reid, whose Hamilton seat disappeared, wasn't parachuted into Airdrie? What link did Tony Blair have with Sedgefield? What link did Peter Mandelson have with Hartlepool? How did Donald Dewar end up in Aberdeen? How did Taysider Mike Watson end up in Glasgow? What connection does Ed Balls have with West Yorkshire? And Anne Moffat's connections with East Lothian were at best ancestral - so her candidacy would be like me seeking election in Paisley!

"Imposing a woman?! Who says the woman in Airdrie and Shotts wont be local?"

Here's the thing... the Party rules as set out by Harman (though disregarded for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth & Kirkintilloch East, I note) are imposed centrally on a constituency. HQ has told local activists that they can pick any candidate they like as long as she's a woman. That's imposition. Of a woman. By the centre. Regardless of the woman's address she has been imposed. And if she's local, then there is no reason why she can't tan the hide of any male candidate in a fair contest.

I am not disputing the argument that the number of women (and LGBT, and BME) candidates and parliamentarians is woefully short of what it should be. It is.

I am not disputing that we need to do something to open up politics. We do.

But I do not believe that just because AWS is something, we should do it. That's an approach straight out of the Jim Hacker School of Politics.

And I do not believe that AWS is the way to equality. It is, at best, the way to parity and those two are very distinct concepts. The idea that any individual, whatever their profile, should be ruled out from consideration for office simply because they might skew the demographic balance is, to me, utterly abhorrent. But that is the risk with the search for parity and it is, unfortunately, an integral part of the AWS process.

Well-meant? I'm reasonably sure of that. Wrong? Absolutely.