Too few women in Lib-Dem ranks

After recently chatting to a local Lib Dem councillor, I reflected that while I know a few women Lib Dems locally, you never hear of any prominent Lib Dem women in Parliament?
House of CommonsHouse of Commons
House of Commons

On doing a little research, I find this is hardly surprising, from a total complement of 57 Members of Parliament there are only seven, yes seven, Lib Dem women MPs. Perhaps the Lib Dems do not see women as people who should be involved in running our nation; seven out of 57 surely speaks for itself no matter how Nick Clegg tries to dress it up?

Continuing my research I came across another unexpected bias in the Lib Dem Parliamentary ranks. I had always thought of the Tories as the party of the ‘aristocratic ruling classes’ but I found the Lib Dems had no fewer than seven ‘Knights’ in their ranks as MPs. The conclusion one is tempted to reach is that if you are a woman with Lib Dem principles (something of a shifting sands concept I realise) you have as much chance of being Knighted by the Queen as being a women Lib Dem MP. Incidentally, and I don’t suppose this matters whether or not you’re a Lib Dem, the records show that in 2013 there were approximately one million more women than men in the United Kingdon.

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Worst still, just look at the UKIP record in the European Parliament on women’s issues. Their MEPs have constantly failed to represent the interests of women by voting against or simply not voting on key votes for equal pay and combating violence against women. Is it a fact that they are against maternity pay?

Also it is unclear whether or not they still wish to abolish four weeks paid holidays for all UK workers. Other than out of Europe, (if they are so against it, why do they go?) and the potential threat this may have to our jobs, we need to examine what UKIP’s policies really are, they seem to range from the odd to the damaging, and change?

It may be tempting to ruffle the established parties’ feathers but perhaps we should be careful in what we wish for and examine their policies properly.

Howard Hudson

River Drive, Padiham

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