Katie Perrior of The Research Shop writes here in a personal capacity.
Never before have women in politics had it so good. Politicians these days are falling over themselves to attract the female vote – photo calls at children’s nurseries, promises over child tax credits and pledges to help mothers get back to work. The Labour Party was the first to be seen to be female friendly when they came to power with a series of ‘Blair babes’ in 1997.
However it is the Conservative Party that has most recently reached out and appealed to women. David Cameron has laid firm his desire for female friendly polices on childcare, the environment, education and healthcare. His plans to include more women within the Conservative Party shows he is taking this issue seriously even within his early days of the Tory leadership. Cameron is a supporter of the Women2Win campaign which I have been involved in. Driven by Theresa May, Bernard & Anne Jenkin and Shirine Ritchie amongst others, it has had tremendous success in last 6 months. The priority list which we know isn’t everyone’s cup of tea - but necessary to put women on an equal footing with the men within the party - will have its teething problems but is a positive step forward. The plan is to get an even balance between women and men and then bin it – a sunset clause on the priority list is what we should all be aiming for in the long run.
The female candidates I have been working with through Women2Win have actively been encouraged to participate in a series of events including speaking engagements, tv and radio appearances, networking evenings, local association dinners – the list is endless and many are grateful to be included in this new political world they have found themselves in. A few of us have nicknamed the new women our ‘political virgins’. Not only do I like some of the new breed that I have met, they seem to me as a genuine breath of fresh air who will become real assets to the Conservatives in the future, unlike some of the Blair babes who just didn’t live up to their much publicised arrival. What we have learnt from the Blair babes is that it is no good just being female – you have to be female and bloody good at your job to succeed in politics.
We can all understand the grumbles of those who think the women got there through their gender but those I have met so far are genuinely there by merit. Many are very impressive.
So all is well with Tory ladies then?
Not quite. Do you know how much one female possible candidate spent last month on attending all these things she was told were vital to success within her party? Nearly two grand. This is all very well for the daughters of current MPs trying to make it big (not knocking them as some of the rich sloanies I’ve come across in the last few months are great and would make fab MPs) but what about the mother with three children who is now weighing up the merits of spending a day out with her kids at Chessington during half term or spending the money on a train journey to another ‘vital to be seen at’ tory shindig instead. Not to put too finer point on it - these things cost money. For a party that fundamentally believes in the free market you would have thought someone internally might have worked this out by now. However, I can’t take credit for this new moan. I’m told it goes back many years. There’s a recent story about a new female Tory MP in 2005 who nearly gave up the seat she was fighting because her exhaust fell off her car as she was driving up the M1 and she didn’t have any money to get it fixed.
To even get an interview as a candidate these days it will set you back £250. £250 and you might not even get picked! How many job interviews do you know where you have to pay the company for the pleasure of being interviewed?
The only solution to stop the financial disparity amongst candidates is to be up front about costs and make bursaries available to those who put a strong business case forward for financial help. As the age old saying goes within the Conservative Party – it would be ‘a hand up, not a hand-out’. These bursaries are needed to create an even playing field – currently a candidate with vast amounts of money could buy any kind of help they wanted and then impress the constituencies at interview stage with their professionalism. Media training? No problem. Researchers on tap? Just a phone call away. If you don’t come from a background of money, you are more than likely to be on the phone begging your supplier to not cut you off. Again.
The tactic Lord Ashcroft deployed with his dosh was spot on at the last election. Rather than throwing a vast amount of money into a central office piggy bank (which we now know was raided to pay out for the likes of the bills of Chairman Lord Saatchi’s firms and strategy guru Lynton Crosby’s rather large wage packet), Ashcroft paid cash sums to individual candidates in target seats who could satisfy him with a detailed action plan to win the seat. It now makes sense to set this kind of unit up at Central Office and open a fund where donors can contribute anonymously so to save any kind of ‘cash for influence’ questions in the future.
Before male candidates start writing in complaining about this idea, I think this scheme should be applied to both men and women and the Conservative Party has a duty to help set it up. However, I continue to harp on about the female cause because it is they who are more likely to find it difficult to pay out candidate costs if they are mothers without an income of their own.
Bringing money into politics instantly makes an already badly perceived career even more grubby. But how can stay at home mums, nurses and teachers afford to represent us otherwise? Conservatives are nothing if they are not realists – they should wake up to the fact that as a party it will never attract the very best from all walks of life until it puts its money where its mouth is. Balls to loans for peerages, how about cash for quality?
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RELATED LINK: Robert H Halfon argues that 'Action is needed to help candidates meet the costs of standing for parliament'.
