Harriet Harman calls for 50% quota for female shadow cabinet members

nickmason

sss555s wrote: »

To say someone who votes in the general election is interested in politics is like saying someone who sticks a £10er on the Grand National is a gambler.

They are. Not a gambling addict, but then we didn't say a political junkie either! To be honest, when canvassing, I tend to find women engage more with politics than men. (But that might obviously have something to do with the sampling methodology)

Kohoutek

carolt wrote: »

We live in what is supposedly a representative democracy. So I want to be represented. I don't think that's terribly unreasonable.

Re your last point, I think that parliament ought to be more racially representative too - it's not as urgent, because we're talking about 1 or 2% of the population here or there being under-represented, rather than 50%. So less urgent, but yes, still important.

So you think that the way to achieve a representative democracy is to have quotas to ensure that the demography of the UK is represented proportionally? Where do you stop - clearly you could go further than just quotas for gender and race?

Surely the idea of a representative democracy is for different beliefs, creeds, political ideologies to be represented? It's a shame if we live in a society where people identify themselves politically in terms of the colour skin or whether they are a man or women, rather than their beliefs on how the country should be run.

To make the UK more representative and more democratic, I think the best way would be take the power of selecting candidates away from party officials and put it into the hands of the people - i.e. have primary elections like they do in the US.

misskool

nickmason wrote: »

What does that mean in pragmatic terms? That it's not helpful to say that the representation of people is not perfect, because it will never be. So quotas - a "pull" towards perfection - are a flawed concept. On the other hand, positive discrimination in terms of support for those under-represented groups can be seen to be addressing an imperfection.

One last observation - those advantages need to be removed once their effect has been felt, otherwise you end up with the same problem of privilege, just a new beneficiary group.

And how are you going to decide when the privilege conferred gets to be done away with? And what happens when you remove positive discrimation and the numbers of female MPs then fall back to where they were before positive discrimination because it was a short term solution instead of addressing long term issues?

I speak from experience of racial positive discrimation. Where I grew up, certain aspects of life were positively discriminated to certain racial groups to redistribute wealth. This created a generation of people who felt entitled to it all and didn't need to work hard to achieve what they wanted. Now you cannot remove the discrimation and quotas because they just cannot compete properly.

I cannot imagine having women MPs who could not stand up on their own but instead are in government because someone said there should be more women MPs.

(and mostly I agree with your postings but not time )

sss555s

nickmason wrote: »

They are. Not a gambling addict, but then we didn't say a political junkie either! To be honest, when canvassing, I tend to find women engage more with politics than men. (But that might obviously have something to do with the sampling methodology)

My point was just to say that just because more women vote doesn't mean more women than men want to work in politics.

That was all.

kabayiri

carolt wrote: »

For example - and it is a tiny, much-quoted example and not terribly important in the grand scheme of things, but I think indicative - VAT is still charged (at a lower rate) on sanitary towels and tampons. Any woman will tell you they are NOT luxury products, they are essentials.
.

So why didn't Harriet lobby for this situation to be fixed? Or Jacqui, or Theresa May, or maybe Yvette Cooper, she would know the treasury cost impact. The Labour women had 13 years to fix things.

You know why not? It's because when they are in parliament they DON'T CARE.

I'd argue parliament doesn't understand the country's needs, just London. Make it a mobile parliament for a few years, see how their view changes when they have to operate from Bradford for a few months.

nickmason

sss555s wrote: »

My point was just to say that just because more women vote doesn't mean more women than men want to work in politics.

That was all.

Accepted and agreed

nickmason

kabayiri wrote: »

So why didn't Harriet lobby for this situation to be fixed? Or Jacqui, or Theresa May, or maybe Yvette Cooper, she would know the treasury cost impact. The Labour women had 13 years to fix things.

You know why not? It's because when they are in parliament they DON'T CARE.

I'd argue parliament doesn't understand the country's needs, just London. Make it a mobile parliament for a few years, see how their view changes when they have to operate from Bradford for a few months.

Actually it was changed under the Labour government, from 17.5% to 5%, in 2000 I think.

What I disagree with you over is that it's up to the female MPs to fix it. Surely that's the same trap - if you expect only those affected by the problem to seek to fix it, then you need a representative parliament. Which I think everyone can see is a fantasy. To be a parliament that represents people (rather than is representative of) requires those unaffected by issues to act on behalf of those who are affected. Which, incidentally, is how a bloke such as me knows about the sanitary products issue - I had to take it up as a student body treasurer.

Generali

http://www.marketingmagazine.co.uk/news/543864/Sector-Insight-Sanitary-protection---Captive-market?DCMP=ILC-SEARCH

Spending on 'Sanitary Products' in 2004 was £310,000,000, a rise of 1% on the previous year. Assuming the market continued to rise at 1% a year, £330,000,000 will be spent on such products in 2010.

VAT on that would be £330,000,000*5/105 = £15,000,000 or thereabouts. It is not possible to cut VAT to zero on any non-zero rated products as that contravenes EU law AIUI.

It is worth noting that VAT isn't only payable on luxuries and hasn't been for over 30 years. Toothpaste for example has VAT on it at 17.5% as do things such as adult clothes, soap and deodorant. Interestingly, chocolate body paint is zero rated, (presumably it counts as food.

nickmason

misskool wrote: »

And how are you going to decide when the privilege conferred gets to be done away with? And what happens when you remove positive discrimation and the numbers of female MPs then fall back to where they were before positive discrimination because it was a short term solution instead of addressing long term issues?

I speak from experience of racial positive discrimation. Where I grew up, certain aspects of life were positively discriminated to certain racial groups to redistribute wealth. This created a generation of people who felt entitled to it all and didn't need to work hard to achieve what they wanted. Now you cannot remove the discrimation and quotas because they just cannot compete properly.

My point was that quotas - pull effects - are a very bad solution. Where something needs to be done (ie genders in politics, but not amongst beauticians) push effects, positive discrimination through training and access, are better. It has to be about oppotunity rather than entitlement. But that help still need controlling lest they enshrine new discrimination. It's a bit like charities - most of which are looking to right some wrong, and so their "mission statement" is to make themselves redundant. Doesn't always work out that way, mind you...

I cannot imagine having women MPs who could not stand up on their own but instead are in government because someone said there should be more women MPs.

Agreed. And the most fervent sharers of your (and my) opinion on that are the female MPs themselves.

(and mostly I agree with your postings but not time )

Don't worry - I think we're actually in agreement, not that I mind if we're not!

nickmason

Generali wrote: »

It is worth noting that VAT isn't only payable on luxuries and hasn't been for over 30 years. Toothpaste for example has VAT on it at 17.5% as do things such as adult clothes, soap and deodorant. Interestingly, chocolate body paint is zero rated, (presumably it counts as food.

And in 2007, VAT was cut on condoms. Which is an interesting corollary to "women are discriminated by being 'luxury-taxed' [sic] on sanitary products", from a catholic perspective...