Reading Alex's piece on Equality and Diversity reminded me of some misgivings of my own.

Like a few of the motions on the agenda, one seems to see the hands of the committee designing the camel behind it. Not that I want to argue against the motion as such. I would like to see us have more female and BEM candidates, I do welcome the involvement of Steve Hitchins, and I don´t want us to go down the route of restricted shortlists, so I suppose I will go along with it. (OTOH I continue to worry that economic equality and social class are invisible issues for Liberal Democrats here).

Alex has already made the point that it is just weird to say that gay representation is part of the problem and then fail to offer a solution.

But my grouse is here

Conference commits the party to the objective of the full representation in elected public office of women, people with disabilities, black and minority ethnic people, and lesbians and gay men, believes that this should be afforded the same priority as the party gives to introducing proportional representation for elections, and agrees to campaign vigorously for this objective in every way possible throughout the remainder of this Parliament.

First problem: believes that this should be afforded the same priority as the party gives to introducing proportional representation.

I´m not one of those Liberal Democrats who only care about PR. Still achieving a structural reform that will make representation better in every way must be more important than temporary solutions aimed at redressing the balance under the current electoral system.

Second problem: agrees to campaign vigorously for this objective in every way possible throughout the remainder of this Parliament.

"Every way possible" is lazy drafting. One of the ways in which we could increase the number of BEM, disabled, gay or female MPs is by deciding not to oppose candidates from other parties who match these descriptions. We don´t mean it so we should not say it. Our objective can only be to increase the number of MPs who both match these criteria and are also Liberal Democrats.

Like a lot of motions this reads more like notes to a speech than a policy proposal. ´This second paragraph is not aimed at saying what we intend to do, but persuading delegates why we should do it. It would do no harm to delete this paragraph - and it would not be a bad idea to comb other motions for phrases like "wherever possible" and decide whether we really mean.