Proposals to increase number of female MPs in Commons rejected

/ Mike Buchanan

Good news in The Guardian. It’s not often I use those words in that sequence. Maria ‘Manatee’ Miller and Sophie ‘Doughnuts’ Walker of the Wimmin’s Equality Party must be howling at the moon. It’s a good day to be alive. Is the Conservative government finally finding some spine by saying ‘No’ to these relentless harridans? More, please.

Manatee and Doughnuts remind me of something we posted onto our YouTube channel two months after we launched J4MB in 2013 – here (cartoon video, 2:10). A hapless male interviewwer in a TV studio interviews Wilhelmina Ballbreaker, from the feminist charity, ‘Equality for Women’. Her character was clearly inspired by Hitlery Clinton.

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8 thoughts on “Proposals to increase number of female MPs in Commons rejected”

  1. The key to having more women in Parliament (if that is important to you) is for more women to be prepared to offer themselves as candidates. In the election of 1997, and in every election since, the proportion of female MPs has precisely matched the proportion of female candidates, the exception being the 2015 election, where the percentage of female candidates was 26% and the percentage of female MPs was 29% (which may be a blip or may be a sign of voting bias in favour of women). We should remember that what is called a ‘quota’ is in fact a barrier against certain individuals on the basis of their sex (a discrimination made legal by the 2002 Sex Equality (Parliamentary Candidates) Act). On current figures, a quota effectively cuts out 70% of the potential candidates, resulting in a 2 in 3 chance of producing a reduction in the quality of representation in Parliament. After all, the purpose of Parliament is not to represent oneself or one’s sex, but one’s constituents – all of them.

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    • Fred, there’s an important nuance here of which may or may not be aware. The proportion of prospective parliamentary candidates (PPCs) who are female is much higher than the proportion of people who apply to be PPCs. When I worked for the Conservatives in 2008 Caroline Spelman was the party chairwoman, and admitted years later that at that in 2008 men outnumbered women in applying to be PPCs by a factor of 10:1. If anything women are considerably OVER-represented as MPs, given how relatively fewer women than men wish to go into politics despite Parliament bending over backwards on working hours, creches etc. The problem is covert positive discrimination for women in the main parties, overt with Labour’s all-women shortlists for winnable seats, giving geniuses like Jess Philips a seat – and the voters of Birmingham Yardley voted her back in again!!! The men who did so are turkeys voting for Xmas.

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      • Thanks, Mike. I could glean the proportions of PPCs from Google (who else?) but had to guess at the proportions of people offering to stand a candidates in each constituency. So all-female shortlists cut out 90% of the talent pool? That explains a lot.

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      • Indeed. AWSs mean that the least talented woman has more chance of becoming an MP than the most talented man (for the Labour party).

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  4. I must admit I was shocked. I expected at least some of the recommendations to get “considered” or “reviewed”. Genuinely surprised at the series of pretty clear “no” responses. Still some part of me thinks there must be a trick here.

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