Warwick-based blogger Alan Beddow explains his reasons for not supporting Reflecting Britain here.

His main reasons are that he opposes “tinkering with the selection process” and the lack of training made available to white men:

As a white, English Male, I feel at a disadvantage. There is some excellent training provided by some groups within the party that would be of benefit to me and to which I am denied. There is advice and guidance available to newer members of the party to which I am excluded.

For the record, Reflecting Britain is not advocating positive discrimination measures, but rather supports the Gender Balance and Ethnic Minority Election Task Forces which seek to encourage, mentor and support women and BME candidates. On the training issue, Mark Valladares rebuts:

At the same time, if you feel that there is lack of training targetted towards white, English males, why not raise the issue with the English Candidates Committee or the Parliamentary Candidates Association? Given that the latter is (effectively) the trade union for those on the Approved List, perhaps it has a role in helping you to develop any skills that you want or need.

One of the reasons for this campaign was to encourage a real debate on these issues, so we welcome the debate. Hopefully we’ll be able to change your mind, Alan.

2 Responses to “A dissenter writes…”

1. Joe Otten Says:
   January 25th, 2006 at 10:54 pm

   An easy mistake to make. It is not very clear what you are proposing, apart from asking for funding.

   I think supporting women and ethnic minorities is an excellent idea. If us white men object, we can organise our own mutual support network. That’ll be the day.

   But I wouldn’t mind more explanation of the thinking behind this initiative. What are the causes of the imbalances? How can they be addressed directly? What is the rationale behind the particular targets chosen? Should we be looking to support, say gay or disabled people also?

2. James Graham Says:
   January 26th, 2006 at 12:28 am

   All fair comments. I’m sure you will understand this initiative has been organised in a bit of a rush!

   There are certainly wider issues than just gender and ethnicity, but I would argue they are the biggest challenges in terms of the UK’s demographics, and we have to start somewhere. Having said that, just as best practice on gender has lead to us taking on board ethnicity issues, it follows that we can progressively handle other issues in turn. The important thing is not to make the perfect the enemy of the good.

   For the record, we now have 1 out gay MP - Stephen Williams. My reading of the party is that there is perceived to be less of a problem in terms of sexuality than race (which isn’t to say problems don’t exist).

   Finally, I think we have plenty of while male support networks, they just aren’t formalised. That’s one of the reasons why I think that argument is such a red herring.

   (writing in a personal capacity)

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