Something Astor give

December 1, 2009 — admin
Nancy Astor

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.

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Pragmatism not principle

October 21, 2009 — admin
Nadine Dorries - I'm a big fan but she's wrong on AWS

Nadine Dorries - I'm a big fan but she's wrong on AWS

I have had a number of discussions with Conservatives about all women shortlists and I seem to be about the only person welcoming DC’s words yesterday.

Look, I don’t like the idea of AWS. Like everyone else, I think it smacks of discrimination. But people like Nadine Dorries, arguing on ConHome that AWS leads to “two-tier” female MPs and Jonathan Sheppard of Tory Radio, with whom I had a good discussion on Twitter yesterday, are missing the point.

Nadine argues that she got in without the need for AWS and that with only 30% of applications from women, only 30% wanted to be MPs. Not only is this statistically complete nonsense, it is also a judgement she is hardly in a position to make. I’m a big fan of hers but on this one she’s wrong.

Moreover, even if we were happy with 30% of the parliamentary party being female (that would do for a start!) we currently have nine percent and with only around 25% of candidates female we are not even selecting the proportion of those applying.

Jonathan and others believe the answer is to encourage more women to apply. Agreed. But that still doesn’ t solve the problem of them being selected by association members – male and female - which itself is probably linked to why they don’t apply in the first place. They think the Conservative Party is a male-dominated environment. They think their chances of selection in a winnable seat are small and they think that even if successful, they will have a small number of female colleagues. Look at the evidence – is this an unreasonable view?

So if we want women to apply to the party, we have to show that we are prepared to select them in winnable areas. We have to show that we are looking to provide a more women-friendly environment and we have to show that in parliament, successful candidates will have a proportional mix of people with whom to work. By saying that our paucity of females in Parliament is the fault of women themselves for not applying is a grotesque abdication of the reality.

AWS is the unfortunate consequence of years of inaction on this issue. We can all pull out exceptions to the rule – Baroness Thatcher etc – but I’m surprised that Nadine Dorries believes that pulling up the ladder to others just because she managed to clamber aboard benefits women or the Conservative Party.

Why is it we are bothered about women “only getting the job because they are a woman”? Does it not occur to people that many, many male MPs only got selected because they went to the right school or university, worked at the right companies, were central office wonks, advisors or former leaders of local authorities? We tolerate this discreet favouritism yet condemn positive action. It’s dreadful and sexist.

The fact is that the party needs its talented women in Parliament and if local associations won’t select them their hands need to be forced. As ever, the AWS women in Parliament will need to work twice as hard to prove themselves. But how condescending for us just to assume that they are not up to it.

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Nine percent isn’t good enough

October 20, 2009 — admin
Chloe Smith is female number 18, but we need more!

Chloe Smith is Tory female MP number 18, but we need more!

While we were selecting Jonathan Lord as our PPC in Woking, there were some misgivings about the at least 50% rule for female candidates, which stated that out of any given shortlist, at least 50% of the candidates had to be female. I may have been about the only person who agreed wholeheartedly with this idea, for reasons I have stated before.

Today, DC announced that the party could move to all-women shortlists for by-elections from 2010 and all I can say before the chorus of tut-tutting is that it’s 15 years too late.

Consider this – in 1931, there were 13 female Conservative MPs. By 1997, the figure had not changed and it currently stands at 18 with the addition of Chloe Smith. This is actually fewer than the 20 in 1992. Yes, the percentage of women MPs is now higher than it has ever been but at nine percent it’s nowhere near good enough.

For 10 years, we have been promising the public that we would do something about this issue. We have failed as a party to do that and if we are to retain any kind of credibility, we need to act. All women shortlists are wholly undesirable. But in the circumstances they are also completely inevitable.

What’s interesting to me is that the image of the Conservative Party as a chauvanistic and male-dominated organisation that excludes women is completely wrong. Women make up a large proportion of members, chairmen and councillors. And it is they, as much as men, who seem unwilling to give their fellow women a chance in the party. But the cause is irrelevant – it is only the end result that the electorate will see.

I totally disagree with Tim Montgomerie on this – his own website has reported recent selections in Sleaford and North Hykeham (Stephen Phillips, who is an excellent candidate and was in the Woking Open Primary), Bracknell (Philip Lee), Macclesfield (David Rutley), Woking (Jonathan Lord) and Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith). All of them are winnable or safe and all the candidates, selected from at least 50% shortlists, are male.

It’s just not good enough. DC has promised to mend our broken economy, society and country. He’s also promised to get more women into Parliament. If the selection panels refuse to do that and we end up with just 30 female MPs in 2010 out of 375 seats, how on earth are the public supposed to believe anything else that he says?

Associations need to stop banging on about “meritocracy” and conservatism with a small “c” and wake up to the bigger picture. Nine percent.

Update: Happily, I find myself in exalted company with @JoanneCash on ConservativeHome, with whose views I totally and utterly agree. The comments that her article has attracted illustrate some of the problems we face. There is no “meritocracy” in constituencies always selecting white middle-aged men and yes, those same men who have worked hard for the party for many years, do deserve to be placed at the bottom of the list for seats because they have failed to engender urgency on this issue.

The argument about “where does it end?” is pretty superfluous – it ends when the Conservative Party gets dragged into a position where it is seen to decently represent the country it aspires to govern. I’m afraid there are no shades of grey on this one for me.

But let’s not allow it to damage the party – there is so much good stuff for us to fight for together.

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Meritocracy or madness?

August 3, 2009 — simonashall

There’s been a bit of a stir in Conservative ranks since the party launched its new selection guidelines for 2010, which included the stipulation that shortlists for selection must contain a 50:50 male/female balance. This is the process that we are following in Woking to select Humfrey’s successor.

A ConservativeHome poll suggests that 91% of party members are against this with just six percent in favour. Count me as among the six percent.

Discrimination of any kind, be it against the minority or the majority, goes against everything I stand for. But at the moment, 91% of the parliamentary party is male (the same number as those opposing the new rules) and there are just 17 female Tory MPs. This is despite DC’s “modernisation” and everything the party has been through since 1997 – we have just four more female MPs elected in the two elections since then.

I think that the Conservative Women’s Organisation and Women2Win are vital to the party’s future and a few of the naysayers would do well to visit the websites. There is no magic solution to the gender imbalance within the Conservative Parliamentary Party but there are compelling reasons why something needs to be done.

First of all, credibility. Unless the party increases the number of women elected, it will simply not be taken seriously, especially by the women voters so vital to success. There is also a trust implication here – we have promised to modernise the party and this is a significant benchmark – to fail here is akin to a broken promise.

Then there is simple natural justice. It is intolerable that such a large proportion of our representatives are taken from such a small pool – however distinguished that pool may be. I don’t care if we have old Etonians splashing around; but I want to see some more people like Nadine Dorries, Justine Greening and Anne Widdecombe who can truly claim to represent a broad spectrum of people.

Thirdly, it will be beneficial to the party and the country to have a more prominent female input into policy and the administration of policy. It will also demonstrate to some of the more resolute grandees that progress is here and they need to get used to it. It’s about time that we dragged this party into the 21st century and if that means balanced shortlists, fine.

I know that I’m probably the only member of the panel in Woking in favour of the 50:50 rule. But the party as a whole has demonstrably and catagorically failed in this area for 30 years – the past 10 years of which have been spent saying that something would be done. Now something is being done and those who don’t like the method can’t say they weren’t warned.

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