EMETF Hustings - how the candidates faired!

Had butterflies in my stomach the past few days hoping that nothing would go wrong with last night's arrangements. I'm a perfectionist when in organisational mode especially when it comes to events. Needed to keep it in my head that it would turn out alright on the day. The chair, Rabi Martins is such an affable person - easy to work with following my tick box system of jobs to do or those done.

So pleased to see he'd arrived before me and a big sigh of relief as the room gradually filled up - 42 people excluding the few press. Very impressive that we had members from Luton accompanying the Mayor, Cllr Haji Abid Hussain and another group from Leicester. Others included several members from around London and beyond, including Simon Hughes's brother and sister in-law.

It showed the determination of attendees that nobody left - unfortunately all the candidates were very late. They had to remain at Parliament, to vote on the smoking bill. Luckily most people knew one and other so it was a case of socialising and waiting. I was up and down the National Liberal Club's long winding stairs like a yoyo waiting for them to arrive. Rabi was on his mobile non-stop.

The first to arrive was Chris Hulme (he left Parliament before the count had had been declared so he couldn't tell us the outcome of the result). Shortly after, Simon Hughes rushed in. Ming Campbell joined us later. He looked a little tired so he went for refreshments before his turn to speak. Can't say I blamed him.

Chris started off - having heard great things about him I was very disappointed. Rather than get to the meat of the issues and talk about matters the audience were there to hear, he gave a long spiel covering a wide range of policy issues (a repeat of what he's been saying on TV and at other hustings) but said very little on anything to do with the ethnic minorities.

When asked questions, his way of answering was to his refer to his manifesto and website. His attitude was just like a businessman taking over a company - we will look at and review was his comment. It was obvious he wasn't up to speed with developments cumulated over the years and why action about Ethnic Minority candidates is needed now. Nor did he seem to have any real understanding or experience of dealing with diversity issues. He confirmed he had pledged to Reflecting Britain but I don't think he was expecting such targeted questions.

Asked about selecting Ethnic Minorities in target seats he surprisingly mentioned having quotas. Not sure if he really meant it or just said it to appease the situation. Personally I feel his was out of his depth in that kind of circle. Not sure he felt comfortable with the continual reference to male mainly middle aged- white candidates either. He was politely received by the audience but his performance just wasn't encouraging. I accept that Chris has some admirable qualities and is from a professional business background but his public persona is dull (lacks charisma) and his whole projection is towards the highly educated middleclass. I can't see the ordinary man in the street being able to identify with him or would be willing to vote for the party if he was the leader.

Ming's turn next, after refreshment he was on the ball. His approach was classical liberalism going back over history. Similarly it was what he's also been saying on the TV. He was however more positive in his approach to the EM issues. He was realistic in the need to raise money for EMETF, provide bursaries for candidates and special projects - to have some radical restructuring within the party bureaucracy. Not sure if he could physically cope with his trouble-shooting idea as wonderful as it sounded.

Ming did confirm that he will be in Harrogate to endorse the motion before the conference to set up an Ethnic Minority Election Task Force on a comparable basis to the Gender Balance Task Force. He acknowleged this was a direct result of the paper - Diversity, Racial Equality and the Party undertaken by Navnit Dholakia and team (myself included) which was approved by the Federal Executive. He wants to see the party allocate sufficient energy and funds and resources to this.

Some of the more poignant questions such as how are they going to handle inherent racism within the party was met with answers from both Chris and Ming which just glossed over the concept as if it doesn't exist.

It was the Chair that skilfully lowered the tension. Some of the questions were getting a bit strong. Everybody wanted to have their say and many were most vocal in their approach.

Finally it was Simon's turn. He was in his element and as usual was straight in with great passion. Of the three candidates, Simon has great experience of diversity issues (within his constituency and other conflicts in other parts of the county) and more importantly unlike the other two candidates is streetwise. He is the only person who bothers to wade in feet first knowing what to do and how to resolve it. He was the first to admit that some of his efforts have been thwart by party bureaucracy.

He acknowleged that the ethnic monitoring ratified by the ECE had not been implemented, so there was no real audit of members. He was emphatic something had to be done about it.
(I sweated blood getting that motion tabled and eventually passed - most of the other members at that time were not really interested).

He mentioned that if he became leader, one of his first actions would be to ask his parliamentary colleagues to agree to a change in their rules, and elect two deputy leaders - one female and one male. This makes sense if we are to seriously retain a noticable visual gender balance.

He made reference to the motion to be debated at conference - 2 year terms for officers of all committees from the Federal down to the local party level. Why it was necessary to bring in fresh blood and stop the internal cliques (can't quite remember Simon actual wording) taking a stranglehold.

It's accepted that Simon is in a rush to change things and progress may be slower than he and many others would like but at least he has the drive, energy and determination. Realistically he is the only candidate who truly accepts the really of the diversity of modern day Britain. He's the one person who can take on Labour in our inner cities.

What I thought sad was that after the event finished, Chris rushed off immediately. Ming followed soon after. Simon was the only candidate who made the effort to speak to everybody and have some pictures taken. Having travelled so far it would have been nicer if the other two candidates had spent some time meeting some of the members.

Mark Valledares is the only person to blog anything today with first hand knowledge of the event. Others I've seen are purely speculative. He has his own personal opinon but my rating would be Simon A, Ming B & Chris C