The post you are reporting:
Marek
I fully understand your viewpoint, and having been on many selection panels
I understanding where your coming from.
But the Labour party has always been a fairly broad church, and if Dover local members is anything to go by most women resent the move on positive discrimination.
You will see leading lights such as our own jan tranter a high flyer in the local political field and a labour activist opposes such a move.
So has labour got it wrong??
I suppose that's to be seen in the fullness of time, it's interesting that the outgoing labour MP who has decided to retire has never pushed the women only shortlist until now(is that because he's no longer standing?)
There are also a large number of women in the local party who resent this move.
to get a bit iof insight into how this can go badly wrong, when the labour party attempted to impose this before in a KCC seat I opposed it and took on the labour party at all levels, and won in the end.
but it took a lot of lets say talking lol.
within this debate there were a few(and it was a few)who looked at the debate as one of self intrerest, one was a candidate and thought she should win the selection purely because she was a women, and men shouldn't stand, that's not a reasonable argument, and i'm afraid she got both barrells from me.
In my 25 years i have helped many achieve aims in life, including women
andif we believe that women dont get a fair deal then we need to find better ways to achieve this.
positive discrimination does not give you better candidates, and you could end up with realy good male candidates being excluded and a poor woman candidate being imposed purely because she was born female.
The labour party may well feel they are being brave but i think it will backfire on them.
Sheila A do you have a view???
I think i know sheila's answer.
It does look like the local party will be taking the route iof women only shortlists and like howard indicated its the last thing labour wants if it wants to win the seat back, at the mo being favourites to do so.
This positive discrimination could well have the opposite affect than what the national/local party wants to achieve.
It's not to late for the local party to speak out against such a move
but will they?????
