All-Women Shortlists: How to Offend Party Members Lesson 1
Friday, 23 October 2009
The party has spoken, through the person of John Maples:
Up until the summer, in Conservative held seats, 10 women (37%) had been selected and 17 men (62%). Since then there have been 5 selections under the old process and 3 under the new procedure (with shortlists of 6 candidates, half men and half women). All 8 selections have produced male candidates. The only woman selected has been Sarah Wollaston, in the all postal primary in Totnes. This trend is not acceptable..We have avoided using all women shortlists so far and had hoped to continue to do so, but we cannot let the current trend continue. [My emphasis]
I let my membership of the Conservative Party lapse some time ago, because it seemed to me that the influence (however small) of the ordinary party member was steadily being eroded. The most significant power of the local associations and party members has always been the selection of election candidates. This has been steadily undermined over recent years. This latest example is merely another step along the route to complete central control over candidates. Is this is a foretaste of the much-vaunted localism that the Modern Conservative Party has been promising?