ConservativeHome's Seats & Candidates blog

How many people in today's politics have run a business or served in their country's armed forces?

There was a very good article in yesterday's The Sunday Times that worried about the absence of business people in politics.  It also noted that few modern day politicians had experience of the military or of life outside of politics.  It worried that there were too many career politicians and suggested that the expense of running for office was excluding people who had engaged in sacrifical service in the voluntary and social enterprise sectors.  The article asked if these representative failures were connected with the incompetence of modern government.

Actually that article didn't appear in The Sunday Times or in any newspaper.  Instead we had a super-long feature in The Sunday Times about the feminisation of politics across Europe:

• Zapatero's Spanish cabinet has more women than men (pictured).
• Seven of Sarkozy's fifteen Cabinet ministers are women.
• Berlusconi has promised to put four women in his top team.
• Five members of Germany's Cabinet are women in addition to Chancellor Merkel herself.
• Ten of Norway's 19 top ministers are women and most Scandinavian nations now have 'zipper systems' that require one woman to be appointed for every man appointed to a political position.

David Cameron intends to discriminate in favour of women here, too.  More than half of his A list were women, women got higher rankings in MEP selection even if they received fewer votes than men and now he aspires to appoint women to a third of all ministerial jobs.

ConservativeHome recently asked Tory members: "Do you agree with David Cameron's aspiration for a third of all ministers to be women in the next Conservative Government?"

30% of the more than 1,500 who responded said 'yes', 60% said 'no'.

The aspiration to remove unfairnesses to women (and ethnic minorities) is right but where is the discussion and concern about the business people, soldiers and social entrepreneurs missing from today's politics?  There is something terribly lopsided about the debate.

Fifty to sixty Tory MPs would be women if David Cameron secures Commons majority

An analysis by ConservativeHome of those adopted as Tory candidates for the next General Election says that there would likely be fifty to sixty women Tory MPs if the Conservative Party formed a majority after the next General Election.

There are currently just 17 Conservative female MPs.

Although the Tory leadership has failed to deliver their ideal aim of half of Tory candidates being women there has been significant progress with women doing relatively better in the most winnable seats.

Although, for example, only 31% of all adopted candidates are women, 46% of the candidates (11) adopted for the 24 seats with notional Tory majorities are women.

The ratio deteriorates thereafter.  35% of candidates selected for the top twenty target seats are women but just 28% for the top 75 target seats.

Women most likely to be Tory MPs after the next General Election include Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands), Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire), Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) and Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North).

On current selections, half a dozen candidates from ethnic minorities are likely to enter Parliament as Tories - joining Adam Afriyie and Shailesh Vara.

Priti Patel (Witham) and Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) are the two "BME" candidates in the group of notionally Conservative seats.  Three BMEs have so far been selected for the top 75 seats: Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones (Chippenham), Zahid Iqbal (Bradford West) and Paul Uppal (Wolverhampton SW).  Six BMEs so far selected for top 150 seats: including Alok Sharma (Reading West), Mark Clarke (Tooting) and Shaun Bailey (Hammersmith).  The party also has hopes that Tony Lit may join the green benches as the unlikely new Tory MP for Ealing Southall after next Thursday.

ConservativeHome Comment: "Although David Cameron's A-list alienated many Conservative activists it has undoubtedly contributed to a significant increase in the number of women who would sit as MPs on the benches of a Tory government.  Many come from conventional Conservative backgrounds, however.  Most of the women selected appear to come from the law or the City.  Few have public or voluntary sector backgrounds.  The party has also yet to address the issues of financial exclusion.  The £41,000 average cost of becoming a Tory MP at the last General Election may deter excellent candidates with modest backgrounds from becoming an MP."

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Associations to be forced to select from gender-balanced shortlists?

Andrew Grice has a good scoop about selection procedures in today's Independent, if not a very good understanding of the current system.

It looks like everybody on the candidates list, not just the priority list, will soon be able to apply for any seat - and be able to try and prove their local credentials. This addresses an issue often raised here that although Associations can recommend non-priority local candidates that they know, candidates themselves are kept out of the loop on selections in seats that they may have strong local connections with.

Unfortunately this sensible amendment is accompanied by a more controversial proposal: to make it mandatory for final shortlists to include two men and two women. This would close the so-called "loophole" of Associations being able to choose all-male shortlists for open primaries.

It's not clear at this stage how rigid this would be. What if two female candidates can't be found? What if the Association wanted to shortlist three females - would the Association still have to shortlist two men? The Party Board will have to approve these changes next week but it's unlikely that the representatives of the voluntary Party will knock it back.

50% women shortlists aren't as disagreeable as all-women shortlists, but many of the arguments against the latter such as "the Widdecombe critique", are still applicable.

Deputy Editor

Lunchtime update from the Press Association:

"Deputy party chairman John Maples, who is responsible for candidates, said: "The Priority List (A-list) has helped us to make significant progress, and so far nearly 40% of selected candidates are women, but we can still do better. The new option toughens up the rules on women and allows more candidates to apply for seats in their region."

The proposal is likely to be seen as a defeat for the 'A-list' system, intended by Mr Cameron to ensure more women and ethnic priority candidates were selected for winnable seats. It has proved highly controversial among local constituencies that deeply resented having candidates imposed on them from party headquarters in London."

Three quarters of Conservative candidates are male

An CCHQ internal report conducted by Shireen Ritchie (Chairman of the Candidates Committee) and mistakenly sent to National Conservative Convention members as part of the Party Board's September report, provides some interesting statistics about the gender balance of Party candidates...

Full candidates list:

544 men (73%)
203 women (27%) 

Priority list: 

62 men (42%)
87 women (58%)

Awaiting Parliamentary Assessment Board (PAB):

341 men (73%)
126 women (27%)

The figures confirm the number of candidates on the Priority list to be 149 and that the second tranche, did indeed consist of "about 50" candidates.

The proportion of men to women between those seeking approval to be candidates, and those already approved is exactly the same.

The report also says that 96 people have enquired about becoming candidates in the last two months, although it doesn't reveal the balance of genders in this group.

In related news, the Board are about to appoint a Deputy Chairman with responsibility for candidates and Don Porter, Chairman of the Convention, is to head a review of the candidacy process. The review will be conducted by Cllr Derek Tipp, Mike Baker and John Strafford, and will canvass the views of Regional Chairmen.

Deputy Editor

LibDems promise extra funds for female candidates

The LibDems are choosing their own path to increase the number of women and ethnic minority candidates.  Rather than the quota-based A-list approach, championed by David Cameron, Ming Campbell has decided upon bribery ...a package of financial inducements.

Targets seats that choose women or ethnic minority will receive extra financial support from a Diversity Fund.  The LibDems hope to raise hundreds of thousands of pounds for this purpose and the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust has already pledged £200,000.

Of the LibDems' 63 MPs, nine are women but none are from an ethnic minority.

Lorraine Fullbrook joins W2W team

Women 2 Win have appointed Lorraine Fullbrook as their Executive Director. Lorraine was one of the 20 candidates to be fast-tracked to a consituency - Ribble South - and will be spending three days a week on W2W.

Deputy Editor