Equally, however, it must be true that a white candidate should have the chance to represent Tottenham or Southall, for instance, if they're the best candidate.

It's incredibly damaging to look at seats in terms of whether they should have a woman candidate or a BME candidate, because it's nonsense that only a BME candidate can represent BME communities, or women can represent women, or white candidates can represent white people. Instead, surely, the BEST candidate should be selected.

What the Party (any party) admits by pursuing AWS or BME-only shortlists is that at present the membership isn't always selecting candidates on the basis of ability.

Of course the alternative case is that the definition of best is subjective; as has been discussed elsewhere, being local is a major (and entirely legitimate) claim for being the best candidate - which makes it harder for any outside candidate black or white to get selected. That argument is used particularly by the LDs as reasons why they tend not to select black candidates for winnable seats: because their safe seats tend to be in largely white areas; as such the local activist base tends to reflect that, and local candidates are far more likely to be selected than outsiders.

I think this is a legitimate question: is it more important to select the strongest candidate regardless of their background (in which case it is inevitable that the increase in BME candidates in particular will be slower), or is it more important that the House of Commons broadly reflects the ethnic composition of the country (in which case BME only seats are the only way to achieve this quickly).

I've never been convinced by the arguments of PR enthusiasts that the principal purpose of elections is to exactly reflect the votes of the nation - the point of elections is to elect administrations - so in a similar vein I prefer the former argument that all parties should pick the strongest candidate available regardless of ethnic background.

One other point Swatantra - Shaun Bailey wasn't selected by the Tories from a BME only shortlist (nor for that matter was Priti Patel in Witham): he won an open primary up against four white candidates. He won on his merits and surely has somewhat more credibility than if he'd been the winner of a rigged selection.

So it doesn't always follow that BME candidates aren't being selected in any party because of inherent bias against them; just that they are under-represented among the total pool of candidates and also have less experience at campaigning for selection than white candidates who've been round the circuit a few times. That's why EMILY's List and other supportive women's groups that provide training, funding and networking opportunities to even up the playing field somewhat are a far more fruitful way of helping get more women selected than skewing a selection automatically in their favour.

It also remains to be seen if Shaun Bailey's electable - I suspect he (narrowly) won't win Hammersmith, but let's see.

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