Unlike our critics, we’re happy to correct anything we’ve said or written which turns out to be untrue or misleading. David Cameron has handed a third of new ministerial positions to women, although fewer than one in three Conservative MPs are women. In two or three posts we’ve used the figure of one in seven Conservative MPs being women, but that has turned out to be incorrect.

68 of the Conservatives’ current 331 MPs are women, about one in five – 20.5%. Female Conservative MPs are only 62% more likely than their male colleagues to be given ministerial positions.

The large increase in the proportion of Conservative MPs who are women stems in part, we believe, from the party’s apparent policy of fielding female candidates against incumbent female MPs at general elections. This, allied with Labour’s continued use of all-women shortlists and expanded number of female Labour MPs, has ironically contributed to the increased number of female Conservative MPs.

We’ll now amend blog pieces citing the ‘one in seven Conservative MPs are women’ claim.