Carlton Club votes 'yes' to women members

Louise Bagshawe started a lively debate on this topic earlier and ConservativeHome warmly welcomes tonight's decision.  It was right that the Carlton Club freely decided that it wanted to make the change but it made the right choice.  An organisation so closely associated with the Conservative Party should not be excluding women from full membership.  Congratulations, in particular, to Chris Gent and Stanley Kalms for leading the 'yes campaign'.

Comments

[Vince]

Good.

[Gawain]

Fantastic news. Now lets have a great win in Crewe and Nantwich. Not all revolutions are left wing !!

[Matt Wright]

Another sign of change. Great news and they have done really good work with young members as well.

[Michael Davidson]

Excellent news.

[James, Swadlincote]

Marvellous to see the Old Gentleman's Club that made the Tory Party into the Conservative Party is willing to accept it's own slight social revolutions.

[Daniel]

As a member who could not be there this evening, I am terribly sad to see this happen.

When will White's allow in women? i.e. even through the front door.

[Steve]

Most of the younger members (inc. me) voted against full membership for woman last year. You don't join a St. James's gentlemen's club in your 20s if you're worried about being modern, do you? The whole point of the place is that it's stuck in the 19th century.

I won't be re-newing my membership.

[Daniel]

Steve,

I will be back in the UK at the end of the year and will see how it effects the club. I will be a conservative, pragmatic but will not renew if it changes.

Of all the battles for Cameroons to fight...

175 years of history blown away for a column on conservativehome.

So what about Whites?

[Ulster Tory]

I'm glad the club has decided to be all for gender equality. Hopefully, It will not fall into the trap of so-called "positive" discrimination.

Now, when can I join the CWO?

[Jim]

I also wont be renewing my membership...

It isn't anything to do with equality in my view... for me the club was a place to get away from women and have a drink with like minded friends...

I will have to find somewhere else now.

[Tuppy]

What a load of meaningless nonsense. These uppity women need to put up, shut up, and sod off. We don't try and gain entry to their clubs. Leave ours alone. Will there be nowhere left from their earnest, keen-bean campaigning?

[F T P Topcliff]

Good idea Jim. May I suggest FIST...I am reliably infomed you shouldn't expect any women on the premises.

[Gloy Plopwell]

Fabulous stupenders news. Well done!!! Open it up to lib dems aswell! I'll be there

[torydeb]

Too bad Steve.

The Carlton Club is a Conservative club. If female Conservative Party members are good enough to pound the pavements, to canvass and deliver leaflets, host coffee mornings to fundraise for a mostly male parliamentary party, the least they can do is open the doors to us fully at OUR club.

The truth is most men who voted against this measure, don't have the social cachet to ever belong to White's, Boodles, etc.

I know at least two people who have tried and failed. The Carlton Club is their only chance to belong to one of the better known clubs and their membership of the Conservative Party is their ticket in. Yet as they had been rejected from the more exclusive private members' clubs, they sought to shut the door to other members of their own party, the raison d'etre of the Carlton's existence, just so that they could soothe their raging inferiority complexes.

I suspect Steve is one of those oiks who would never have been allowed near a PMC in the 19th century yet now he is in, he wants to restrict the enjoyment of the club from others who have just as much right to be there.

HA! HA! YOU WON'T BE MISSED.

[Jeremy W]

I suspect the posters Jim and Steve above are not really members of the Carlton Club, but trolls on this thread. A genuine member of the club would know that women are already associate members and have access to almost all the club's facilities.

If the membership of the Carlton was really to get away from women, then they would have left a long time ago.

Besides, the time when women were regarded as empty headed breeding partners is far behind us. My wife is my best friend and the person I enjoy spending most of my time with. I am embarassed that someone would find the sight of her so offensive that he would seek to deny others the pleasure of her company at the Carlton. It makes you wonder what sort of fishwives and harridans they have for mothers, wives, or daughters that there is such a desperate need to get away from them. Says a lot more about these characters than anything, methinks!

[Tuppy]

Jeremy W makes the key point, in case you hadn't noticed: women are already well inside the club, so most of the posts like mine have been satirical.

[Jon]

Hold a second, Tory Deb. This has got nothing to do with women's "right to be there". The issue was entirely within the gift of the Club's male voting members. Your vulgar glee at the outcome and misplaced sense of entitlement are the sort of thing that make some of us uncomfortable at the decision.

[Goldie]

Terrible news. What is the world coming to?

[Michael Davidson]

Won't somebody pah-leese think of the children!!!

[Andrew Woodman]

What difference will it make to those not renewing their subscriptions? Women go in there anyway, it's not as if it's being converted from a men only club.

[torrywarren]

People are totally missing the point by saying that women have the right to be full members because they pound the street as activists of the conservative party. There is no direct entitlement. The club is affiliated to the party, it is not an extension of it. As a members club it can select whomever it wishes to become members. That is why you are vetted, put in a box and a certain number of people need to sign your name and equally people can object to you becoming a member if they do not think you are the right sort of person to be a member.

The club decided last night to allow women as full members not because it had to or because the party wanted it to or even because of the law but because that's what the (male voting) members wanted.

It is the very fact that it is one of the nicer, more progressive clubs that it has so many young members and young lady associates- indeed so many there is now long waiting list.

[Craig Barrett]

I second the points made by Jeremy W. If these contributors are really members of the Club, they would know that women are a pretty regular fixture, often outnumbering the men. In practical terms, I doubt that there will be much of a change other than the ability of women to be able (finally) to have a say in the running of the Club of which they pay to be members.

The debate last night was, all in all, pretty stale. The vote was tight but we got the right result...and I have the hangover to prove it.

[Louise Bagshawe]

Thanks again to Lord Kalms and Chris Gent, as well as Craig Barrett and all other men who voted last night. This had nothing to do with the preservation of gentlemen's clubs, which I support, but with the premier club affiliated to our party and supporting it reflecting the party's values.

As my friend Dan Hannan points out on Telegraph Blogs today, reformers in the Carlton have long been in the majority; the requirement to get two thirds was what was defeating them.

I gather Lord Kalms and Mr. Gent mounted a very professional get out the vote campaign this time.

Many thanks to both gentlemen. I hope to join them as a member in the future.

[S.E.L]

Yesterday was a sad day for many members of the club. To clarify a point: Women are not allowed into the Morning Room (members' bar) and Churchill room at lunch and dinner. They very likely will be in the next year or two ("full fees, so why not full access?" will be the winning argument), and this is what upsets many members.

The members who voted for the motion deluded themselves into thinking that if women become full members then the shadow cabinet and other senior party members will start to regularly use the club (all the easier then to bump into the right person to ease one's political career along). I don't think Cameron will now shun Whites in favour of the CC.

The Carlton is no longer a conservative gentleman's club, it is now a political club with a gentleman's past. Something has been lost, never to return, and I too will be reconsidering my membership.

[David Gold]

I will now ask to take up the honorary membership they offered when I was selected as a parliamentary candidate. i could not accept the offer while female memebrs were not afforded the same privilege. I am not against male only clubs, but as others have already stated, a club with such strong links to the Party cannot justify excluding women.

[F T P Topcliff]

Now why aren't I surprised this story is not on the BBC?

You can rest assured that if the Carlton had let us all down and embarassed us AGAIN it would have been all over the news.

[comstock]

You don't join a St. James's gentlemen's club in your 20s if you're worried about being modern, do you? The whole point of the place is that it's stuck in the 19th century.

If the owner of the historic coaching inn up the road from me decided to refuse to admit women or employ female barstaff on the grounds that 'the whole point of the pub is that it's stuck in the 19th century' he would rapidly be in doggy doo-doo with the powers that be.

Why should a rich mans club be any different?

[Steve]

The issue has always been about people over stating the relationship between the Club and the Party. The modern day relationship is loose, at best. CCHQ doesn't really give a toss what the Club does. Nor should it.

The demand for full female membership is always made by people with good intentions, but for political effect, rather than any desire to keep the traditions of the Club alive. They naively think that it is a big step forward for the Party - it's not. It's just a gentlemen's club allowing full membership for woman.

I don't actually believe what the Club does has any baring on how people view the Party.

I don't believe the associate female members will be all that chuffed about having their annual fees doubled, but there you go...

[david harvey]

In the overall scale of things, the Club voting to admit women is only another pebble in the substantial pile the Party is trying to move to get Conservatives back into government, but an embarrassing one for Labour to have waved aloft in a debate over the Equality Bill.

The majority of club members have consistently favoured reform - the last survey of members gave a 75% yes. Sadly, it has taken those of us in the particular group of members and lady associates who have led on this 10 years to persuade others of the need for reform.

Those who have opposed change have constantly downplayed the link with the Party; support for the Conservative Party is the fundamental Club rule and it's why people join and what most site as their reason for continued membership. The actively poitical, young and old, overwhealmingly favoured change and have done so since the early 90s.

The Club is where a powerful consituency of supporters, donors and influencers from business come together, but rather less so in recent years because of the ladies issue (I could demonstrate this chapter and verse). There are lots of places, many much more contemporary, where senior Tories come together but for the under represented business community in the Party it is an important one and can now be much more useful.

Finally Stanley Kalms and Chris Gent were indeed prominent, but many others were as prominent; they know who they were - thanks