All-Women Shortlists and the Conservative Party

by Rene Kinzett
Councillor, PPC for Swansea West and TRG Member

At this evening’s Swansea Council Meeting, we briefly debated the recommendations of the Welsh Assembly Government Panel looking into how councillors are selected and elected across Wales and how we should all be working towards making councillors more representative of the communities they represent. For example, across Wales, 75% of councillors are men.

I have made my views known and given more analysis on the WalesHome website.

This debate reminded me about the issues surrounding the debate within and outside the Conservative Party on All-Women Shorlists. Currently, only 28% of all selected Tory Parliamentary Candidates are women. Whilst the number of female Tory MPs looks set, at current estimates, to rise from 18 to around 60, the trends for women being selected in currently held Conservative constituencies (where the sitting MP is retiring) is not very satisfactory at all.

Of the last 8 selections for candidates in these seats, all 8 have selected male candidates, even after rules were implemented ensuring balanced shorlists in three of those selection battles. Interestingly, the only Tory-held seat to select a female candidate recently has been Totnes, which selected a local GP after an open primary selection procedure.

Now, the John Maples MP, the Deputy Chairman of the Party with responsibility for candidates, has posted his views as to why All-Women Shortlists, in Tory-held seats, is now vital if the Party is to seriously address the historic (and continuing) under-representation of women in our Parliamentary Party.

I have to say that I do agree that we MUST press ahead with All-Women Shortlists. It cannot be the case that we are selecting only the best candidates when under one-third of our PPCs are women. It simply cannot be the case that selection committees are weighing up in a fair and even manner the respective skills of all candidates of both genders and coming up with conclusions that appear to virtually exclusively favour male candidates. There are problems with selection procedures and approval systems for candidates in ALL parties, but we have to act NOW and not wait another four years or more before we can move decisively towards a more balanced and representative Parliamentary Party.

I would propose that open primary selection procedures should now be brought in for ALL selections for Parliamentary candidates across ALL political parties – conceivably this could be enshrined in law. This seems to have been the one initative within the Party that has had some success in selecting women in winnable seats.

Conservative HQ have challenged local parties to take the issue of selecting women candidates more seriously and they have failed. The Party may express that it is “reluctantly” going down the road of All-Women Shortlists, but to quote one famous Tory lady “there is no alternative”.

This piece first appeared on Rene’s Blog. You can see the original here

TRG Chairman’s Conference Diary – Day 1 Monday 5 October

I arrived at Conference on Monday morning along with the TRG Deputy Chairman Victoria Roberts and Student TRG Chair Iain Martin. We made our way to the TRG Apartment about half a mile from the Manchester Central and Midland Hotel where this year’s Party Conference was to be held. Some of the TRG Board had arrived on the Sunday night and were ready to greet us. My predecessor as Chairman Tim Barnes was of course on hand ready to lend a hand where needed as well as newly appointed Dave Fazakerley and Cllr Gareth Compton. The TRG was scheduled to hold five large events over the course of 3 days. This was an ambitious programme but I was confident that as a team we would be able to put on a real show! This was to be the fifth TRG Conference programme that I had been responsible for but my first as the TRG Chairman! So the pressure was on.

Having spent the afternoon meeting with TRG members at the Midland Hotel, Victoria and I scouted out the rooms where our events were to be held. Our first event was the TRG Mainstream Reception at 6pm in the Fairclough Suite at the Midland Hotel. From experience of conferences past I knew that this meant that our first guests would begin arriving at around 5.15pm! The difficulty with being TRG Chairman at these events is spending the right amount of time talking to members, MPs and Candidates about the TRG as well as concentrating on the running of the event itself. As a former Events Board member the temptation for me is just to consume myself in the organising. But Victoria and Iain were certainly not going to let me do that. They along with the Midland staff had the room looking ship shape in no time. Copies of Reformer, TRG flyers and adverts for upcoming events were littered around the room. The doors were kept firmly locked until 5.50pm.

The event format was to be a wine and refreshments reception – a sort of welcome to Conference for our members. I never know how many TRG members go to the Conference but of the 14,000 delegates in Manchester I had a feeling a good many would be TRG members or prospective members and so it is important for us to have a real presence. This reception was the opportunity to announce our programme and to show that the home of One Nation Progressive Conservatism is alive and prospering. Damian Green MP, the TRG Vice-President is one of our strongest assets as a group. He has been hugely welcoming to me since I took up the post of Chairman and an invaluable source of advice. Damian hosts this reception every year and he and his wife Alicia were prompt and immediately began chatting to TRG members. Chloe Smith , the newly elected MP for Norwich North is a good friend to the TRG and sure to be an excellent Parliamentarian. Chloe had kindly agreed to address the group and was gracious in her thanks for TRG’s work in Norwich earlier in 2009.

The reception was a great success. TRG members from across the country popped in and the room was soon enough jammed. Alistair Burt MP, another TRG Vice-President, observed to me that the room was just the right size as the atmosphere was excellent. Over a 100 attendees at our first event! The reception was also a great moment for the TRG Board at Conference to meet up. Our excellent Board Member Nigel Huddleston is the Parliamentary Candidate in Luton South where he is facing Ester Ranson. I lost no time in announcing that TRG’s next Action Day would be in Luton. I have long been confused by Esther Ranson’s sudden desire to be the MP for Luton especially as the awful Margaret Moran is standing down and given that she appears to have no local connections!

Following the reception, the TRG Board went off their separate ways to attend as many fringe events as possible. It is vital for us as an organisation to speak to as many groups and delegates as we can. It was some hours later that we all met up again in the bar of the Midland Hotel. Conference is in many ways like a meeting place for old friends – Party members from across the country meet up every year and it is fascinating to know how campaigns are going in different parts of the country.  I chatted over the course of the night to what felt like hundreds of delegates and was really struck by the interest in the TRG and by how many had heard of the work we had been doing.

The atmosphere at Conference on Day 1 was electric – a really powerful feeling that we, as a Party, are ready to take power, ready to change our country for the better and that we have the real ideas needed. Chatting to TRG Patron Nick Bourne AM I was delighted to hear that the One Nation message was proving effective in Wales and that we stood a real chance of gaining a number of previously unthinkable seats. Re-energising TRG Wales was a commitment that I had made some time ago and over the later part of 2009 and 2010 I am determined to ensure that we provide more for TRG in Wales.

As I headed back to the TRG Apartment that evening it was with a real feeling of elation and excitement.  

Day Two will appear tomorrow……………..

Marketing Perils for MEPs at Conference

Dan Hannan Card

Roger Helmer Card

Geoffrey Van Orden Card

Sir Robert Atkins Card

There is a theory that there is no such thing as bad publicity. I am not so sure.

In a week of conference discussions where Europe was, once again, a prominent issue for the Conservatives, the MEP group had decided to give away a stack of playing cards with their faces on the cards, so that we can all learn their names as we play poker. I seem to remember the Americans doing something similar so their troops could learn to recognise the top Iraqi’s during the initial invasion a few years ago.

However, these things are never quite as thought through as you might expect.

It seems that Roger Helmer and Dan Hannan are a pair of jokers (perhaps not too surprising, that) and Geoffrey Van Orden is the Jack of Hearts (a little gossip we should know about?). Sir Robert Atkins managed a more sombre tone, at least.

PS – apologies for the quality of the images, but I took the pictures with my phone!

A Bit Wet in Manchester

Day two of the party conference is under way in Manchester. Time was when describing it as a ‘wet’ affair would have meant something different, but I mean it only in the conext of the weather. It is raining. A lot.

Inside the warmth of the conference venues, things are hot and packed, even first thing on the morning after what was, for some at least, a very late night in the bar.

It is perhaps not surprising that the mood here is very business like. There are exhibitors in the main hall that I have never seen at a conference before, including Marks and Spencer and Tesco. People want to know what Conservatives think and are planning. They believe we can win.

In the bars, there are plenty of meetings that feel like the kind you find at trade shows. It is the vibe given off by people getting things done and meeting new people that they think they will be working with. They think we can win.

And at the risk of offending some of our members and readers it is also worth saying that there are many more women here than I have noticed before. And they are young, attractive and very well tuned out. The se may be true of the guys, but I am afraid my radar doesn’t really pick that up. Whether these young ladies are candidates, activists or lobbyists and PR girls, does not really matter. They are a circumstantial sign of the belief that it is now worth coming to a Conservative Party conference even when it is a wet one.

They believe we can win. So do I.

TRG@Conference2009

As the Party Conference gets underway in Manchester this evening, the TRG is making final preparations for its programme of events. There is a very good new section on the refreshed TRG website that has all the details of what we will be doing (I can say how brilliant it all is safe in the knowledge it had nothing to do with me, so no bragging!).

Victoria, Tim C and I will all be blogging here with our thoughts over the next four days, so keep checking back for updates!

In the meantime, I have kicked-off my contribution with a post on ConHome as we think about the policy announcements we all hope to see.

New TRG website

Well done to Tim C and Victoria who have been working hard with a new web designer to get a refreshed TRG website up.

Good work, both!

Take a look now and let us know what you think.