WLD Chair Joins Name Your Diamond Campaign

12.00.00am GMT Wed 1st Mar 2006

Chair of WLD, Liz Wheeler, encouraged women in the Party to name who they believe would make a great candidate. She is also called on the leadership candidates to prioritise tackling the under representation of women in the Party.

Commenting on the Reflecting Britain campaign, Liz said "It is crucial for the credibility of the Liberal Democrats that urgent action is taken to address the under representation of women in the Parliamentary Party in order to fully represent the population they seek to serve."

Julia Goldsworthy MP commented on the campaign:

"When I first thought about going through the candidate selection process, one of the main things holding me back was my own lack of confidence. For me, what swung things was the encouragement and support of Matthew Taylor MP, who made me believe that I was capable of doing it! We need more women candidates and more women MPs, but we need more women to go through the selection and approvals process to achieve this - so maybe these women need a bit of encouragement to put their names forward…..

If you can think of someone who would make a fantastic candidate, but might be lacking the confidence to put themselves in the frame, why don't you nominate them? That way they can be approached by someone (like me!) who can talk through realistically what the process involves and hopefully get them through that intimidating first step of starting the process."