Women come out for Hillary!

So, it would seem, from a quick review of what's being said, that Hillary's win in the New Hampshire primaries is as a result of women coming out for her in the last few days. This is confirmation that in politics gender certainly matters.

And once again, I ask myself in a country where women make up 52% of the population why we don't take more electoral advantage of those women who do put themselves up for a selection; particularly in target, by election and vacated held seats. As Lib Dems we may not think the gender of the candidate relevant but it looks like voters do. Even in the UK there is a 2% increase in female turnout if there is a female candidate (and a neutral impact on male voters); 2%, well, that can make quite a difference at times, can't it?

You see, although I do think that diversity is 'a good thing' in it's own right, I do find the fact that diversity helps win votes an even more compelling argument for having more of it!

Lynne in her blog post this morning can almost be heard sighing over how far equality has to go if male BME MPs are having to defend their choice of Hillary vs. Barack lest they should be seen as disloyal. Lynne looks forward to a time when colour or gender doesn't matter when choosing a candidate, when all that matters is whether they are the best.

Well, I think that's wishful thinking. Firstly, because I believe that for the vast majority of voters the decision of who to vote for is intuitive and a response to an engaging political narrative or (and this may be the same thing) an identification with the candidate. It is rarely a rational assessment of the pros and cons of the candidates skills set and policies, so hankered after by us political activists.

Secondly, even if voting wasn't such an intuitive matter that still leaves us with the problem in defining best; this is entirely subjective. It may be, if I had a vote in the US elections, best for me that I vote for a woman who has experienced all sorts of below the radar prejudice herself and is conscience of all the invisible, non legal hurdles that women have to climb even to compete in the workplace, for example. That would be quite logical for me, I guess.

And to prove my point, If I did have a vote in these elections I would be voting for Obama...for the intuitive reasons outlined above; I have completely fallen for his political narrative. That doesn’t mean though, I would be outraged if Hillary got the nomination.

However, what is most exciting is how riveting the democratic nomination process is this year!

As someone who is much more interested in the issues that politics has sway over rather than the game itself, this is the first time that US politics has captured my imagination. And it would seem from the increased turnout that it has captured the imagination of many voters in the US who previously couldn't give a fig for primaries!

It surely can't be that the idea that, if the Democrats win, they will either be putting a women or a black man into The White House for the first time, has nothing to do with it? Imagine if we had such diversity at the top of politics in the UK, might not that lead to a resurgence of interest in politics that we Lib Dems could capitalise on?

What's our Story?

One of the things that I'm enjoying most about this leadership content is the discussion, on blogs and elsewhere, about creating a Liberal Democrat vision for Britain and how important it is for our new leader to be able to do that.

Every now and then there's a spurt of discussion on the blogosphere about what a narrative is; have we got one? If not, why not? Do we want one anyway? And, what's wrong with freedom, fairness and green..or whatever it is?

As I mentioned on Charlotte Gore's blog the other day, I'm at the point of 'concious incompetence' when it comes to understanding what a narrative is: I can recognise when something is not a narrative and in fact just a list of policies or a slogan but find it hard to define what one is.

So, when I came to trying to work out what subject to discuss at the Crystal Palace Pizza & Politics that I'm hosting in December it seemed a good idea to have a debate about what our vision might be.

In other words I want to get a whole load of people round to my house, feed them with wine and pizza and get them to provide me and my fellow activists with a pithy, vision type, answer that we can all agree on, to that doorstep question: 'Why should I vote for the Liberal Democrats?'

Neil Stockley (from the FPC and Greenwich, but we're not holding that against him, it's still south London, after all) has very kindly agreed to come and sketch out what a narrative is, what it isn't and why we might want one. And then the debate about what that narrative is can begin!

If you would like to contribute to the debate whilst being bribed with food and wine in the glorious corner of south London that is Crystal Palace (we have our very own Eiffel Tower), then please do come along.

Strangely, I wont be posting my address up on the internet but you can find out details on the Flock Together website...it's on the 15th December, the day the leadership polls close and is filed under Pizza & Politics (Crystal Palace). The details and entry fee are all there.