Women to remain half-members at the Carlton Club

The self-described "oldest, most elite, and most important of all Conservative clubs" will retain its membership rules after modernisers didn't get enough votes to reform them.

Led by current Chairman Lord Cope of Berkeley, who is also the Conservatives' Chief Whip in the Lords, most votes were in favour of the change but they didn't quite reach the two-thirds majority needed to effect it.

The result will frustrate David Cameron's team who have been pushing for more female representation throughout the party, but they were smart enough not to back the failed motion as publicly as Hague did in 2000. Cameron does of course frequent Whites club just down the road which completely excludes women.

The Carlton Club hasn't always been "men only", the woman who many of you believe to be the greatest living Briton began the erosion of its tradition by earning membership ex officio of her job.

Deputy Editor

Comments

[Sally Roberts]

Doesn't surprise me - but if the boys want to remain exclusive, that's fine by me!

[Alison Anne Smith]

There's more important things to worry about in the world. I prefer McD's for my lunch anyway!

[michael mcgough]

Good to see Conservative discrimination perpetuated-----so consistent with the discrimination in favour of female candidates and against gifted children of poor parentage in areas WITHOUT grammar schools.

[Ted]

While it's a nice club to visit, I wouldn't say its membership is exactly representative of the Conservative Party at large. Suppose they are conservative so change is viewed with suspicion.

Still as result of the selection of more female candidates resulting in increased female representation in parliament it will become harder for the Carlton to retain its position as the most important Conservative Club if a large number of MPs cannot be members. Wouldn't be surprised if rules change next parliament.

[Perdix]

Michael McGough 11.58 - seems to me your sole purpose in life is to watch threads on ConHome so that you can make a dig at the Conservative Party. Have you ever made a constructive comment on here? Perhaps you should post on another party's site.

[Katie]

Well we girls only make trouble anyway don't we. We have little understanding of the great debates of Men and we always pass the brandy the wrong way

[Scotty]

Katie, we must make sure that the men don't feel marginalised or in any way discriminated against by opening up the club to women.
Where would it all end, one might even think they are capable of being a leader or PM?

[Goldie]

Finally, some good news.

[Ted]

Katie :-)

[Conservative Homer]

If Daves so bothered about it, why cant he champion the setting up of a 'womens only' club? maybe call it the Granada club :)

[Oliver Arthurs]

The question is not why women aren't being given full membership status, but why they even have half-membership status in the first place?

Stripping women of any rights to use the Carlton's facilities would at least be one way of Cameron showing he isn't completely enthralled to the politically correct brigade.

[PTC]

Hardly a surprising outcome when the Party does not have the balls to challenge the Assn of Conservative Clubs on the bar on women being full members of some clubs. Why is it that the most important qualification for being a member of some Con Clubs is not whether or not one is a member of the Conservative Party, but whether one has or does not have a penis? If you don't want women as full members, fine, but call your club the "Conservative Mens Club" instead of pretending to be a club for all Conservatives.

[Jon White]

Well, as a member of a 'boys only' club (The Freemasons) I suppose that I can rightly be accused of being a total hypocrite for saying that this decision is wrong.

However, if this club is 'officially' linked to the party (whose greatest ever leader was bereft of a penis, despite her famous quote that 'every PM needs a Willy' (Whitelaw)), it looks very bad. I believe that in a free society any club has the right to choose who it wants as members. But, if the club is representative of a party seeking the support of the population (about 50% of which are female), it's hardly very bright to say 'you can't join', is it?

When I joined the Conservative Club in North Watford over 17 years ago, it had a 'Members Only' bar. 'Associate Members' were not allowed to drink there. Women could only be 'Associate Members'. I often wondered what would have happened if the incumbent Prime Minister had visited the club. Would they have let her drink in the Members only bar? (Bit like the South Africans making some Black visitors 'Honourary Whites' when they came to the country during Apartheid)

Imagine the outcry if they had said that Black people, or Muslims, couldn't be full members. Yet these groups represent substantially less of the electorate than females.

Really, a decision that will once more be reported by the media as showing that the Tory party is still in the 19th Century. Sadly, this time, it's rather hard to argue against that.

[Bill]

After all the patronising contemptuous guff we have had to put up with this week from the political establishment ranging from the the Blair-Brown handover to grammar schools and the FOI exemption (this country increasingly reminds me of pre-revolutionary France), London clubs are (and probably were before) a matter of supreme indifference to me.

[Sean Fear]

Personally, I think that not allowing women to be full members is a bit silly, given that women have been involved in Conservative politics for nearly 100 years. That said, a club is entitled to be as inclusive or exclusive as it likes.

The Carlton Club is such a dismal place, though, that I wonder whether any woman would want to join even if she was allowed.

[Jon White]

Good point Sean. As a twice divorced man, I can't understand why Gay people want to be allowed to marry!

[Sally Roberts]

Quite right, Sean - the whole point is that the Carlton, as a private members' club is entitled to adopt its own rules!
Frankly, as I said above, I really don't have a problem if the men want to be on their own! My late father was a keen racing enthusiast and used to be a member of a male-only enclosure at Ascot called "The Iron Stand" to which he used to repair with his chums, leaving my mother and I elsewhere!! The Iron Stand used to be referred to as "The Piggeries" in my family - after I gave it the name because "MCP's" sat there!!
Better to be amused than get wound up in my view...

[Caroline]

Personally, I'm happy that my (associate) membership fee didn't go up!

AS a mdoern young woman its obviously much harder for me to give in to patriarchy and ask daddy for more money

[A N Other Man]

Have the WI had a similar vote about admitting men recently?

[Ted]

A N Other Man - I am a proudly male member of my company's women's staff association as one of my staff was it's VP and wanted all the team to join and in a non discriminatory world men can join (though we tend not to be very active members).

The point isn't that the WI has only female members, but that a Club that declares its association with a political partty should not discriminate. Fine for Whites to have only male full members that's up to them but the Conservative Clubs across the land and the Carlton are not in the same position. IDS was quite right to refuse his membership.

[Jon White]

Precisely Ted.

[michael mcgough]

PERDIX;I thought you had been shot.Remember only a friend can be relied on to tell you indelicate truths (such as having BO).

[Tory T]

Ted and John, I agree.

It will be interesting if the new generation of women MPs demand full membership.

John has a good point. I support men and women only clubs. The problem is when a club claims official linkage to the party. It is, as John rightly says, inconceivable that a club linked to the Conservatives should exclude on the basis of race. No more should it exclude on the basis of sex.

But not to get too worried; this will change within five years, I feel sure.

[IRJMilne]

I'm rather bewildered that this bothers anyone, and somewhat astonished that so many members of said club voted to allow women to join.

If people are fussing about stuff like this, it proves that we face no serious problems in modern Britain, and people are looking for something, anything, to change. That, or people are being very stupid and wasting energy on cleaning the sails whilst there are gaping holes plugged into the ship of the state.

[David]

Re posting on other sites - Lib Dem Voice is now monitored and anything that criticised the LDs is removed. There is no free speech on Lib Dem Voice at all.

The Cartlon Club is a morgue....

[Stephen]

One of the reasons a 2/3rds majority wasn't forthcoming was because the General Committee suggested that the change was required because of forthcoming EU legislation. Of course, when questioned, this legislation doesn't actually exist yet. Personally I feel the charm of the place lies in the fact that it doesn't ahere to every modern demand. People kid themselves that the club lies at the heart of the Party. It doesn't, and most of the members are quite happy about that.

[congacong]

"IDS was quite right to refuse his membership."

Not in realpolitik terms he wasn't. Those 1500 mid-ranking apparatchiks, those association vice-chairmen and minor Lords could have made the difference for him. A pity he decided to be a clubland snob and view the place as middle class.
The carlton club isn't powerful, but it is omnipresent.

[Richard Hyslop]

The Carlton Club is a private members club and they are entitled to make what ever decision they wish as to who they do or do not allow to be members.

[TW]

Thank goodness for that! This omnipresent drive to make everywhere souless and conformist is depressing; the unique atmosphere at the Athenaeum has certainly been lost since women were admitted. I am a firm supporter single sex clubs and the right of a private membership organisation to select its own members in it own way. As I am under 30, I trust I will not be villified as an out of date old codger for having these views.

[David Gold]

As a selected parliamentary candidate I was offered honorary membership but have not taken it up because of the rule against full membership for women.
I have no problem with male or female only clubs - I used to belong to the East India Club - but I do feel that as a Conservative Party establishment membership should be open to both men and women.
If elected at the next general election I will review my decision and may take up membership so that I can vote for change.

[TW]

I understand your position David but the Carlton is, in truth, merely a supporter of the Party. Legally it is an entirely separate, private entity and has no mention in any of the statutes of the Conservative Party. It could, if it so wished, cease to even be a supporter of the Party if it chose. It should therefore be allowed to do as its members choose according to their own rules.