Welcome to my blog. I am a former local journalist who now works in PR and a Conservative and community activist in Woking and Horsell. This blog will keep updated on local issues as well as my interests and quirky news stories.
Nancy Astor
It is 90 years ago to the day that Nancy Astor became the first woman to take her seat in the House of Commons. It’s fair to say that her political career was a good deal less significant than her electoral achievement – given the accounts of the time, not something that can entirely be explained away by the difficulties she faced in a house full of men.
Ninety years on, we have 125 women out of 646 members of parliament, which is better but represents only one fifth of parliament representing more than half the population. Needless to say, the worst offenders are we Conservatives, with just 18 out of 193 seats (less than one in ten), then the Liberal Democrats (one in six) followed by Labour, which actually does rather well with 98 out of 349 (two in seven).
There are those who say that all of this is the fault of women for not coming forward in greater numbers, that women don’t want to be MPs. I suspect the truth is that women don’t feel an environment that continues to be male-dominated is an attractive prospect and while they would like to be active in politics, they take the decision to do something equally constructive in another field of life.
I don’t think that helps parliament or the country. We have come a certain distance in statistical terms since Nancy Astor but depressingly little has changed in the corridors, stairways and offices where the real power to make decisions lays.
