Parties square up over candidate credentials
The Conservative party is “overwhelmingly” selecting men, having appointed its 13th male candidate in a row, Hazel Blears has claimed.
The Labour party chair has accused the Tory party of “posturing and platitudes” after arguing that it is has failed to make good its promises on sexual equality.
Ms Blears said: “David Cameron says one thing and does another. Last year he said: ‘We want to make sexual inequality history’, but he has taken no action to stop the overwhelming selection of male candidates.
“Without action his words cannot be trusted as anything more than a PR stunt.”
Ms Blears challenged Mr Cameron to select more female candidates and also called on him to cancel his membership of Whites, “am exclusive, all-male club”.
However, the Conservatives maintain that over a third of candidates selected for target seats are women, while nine per cent of current Conservative MPs are female, rising to ten per cent among the latest intake.
Conservative Party Chairman, Francis Maude responded: “This is selective counting at a most cynical level. More than a third of our candidates selected to fight target seats at the next election are women. This represents huge progress and unlike the Labour Party, all our associations voluntarily chose women, they weren’t compelled by all women short lists.”
Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats claim to have selected women and ethnic minorities in half of key seats.
Speaking at the spring conference, party president Simon Hughes said that over half of the 63 ‘most winnable seats’ – after the 63 already held by Lib Dem MPs – would be contested by women or candidates from an ethnic minority.
“The party is becoming more representative of our diverse country, but this is only the start. The change must happen with a greater sense of urgency,” Mr Hughes said.
“Our ambition should be nothing less than for half of our candidates in all seats to be women, and eight in each hundred of our candidates in all seats to be black or from other visible minorities.
“In addition to the growing existing organisations, we will set up the Liberal Democrat Africa Forum, Arab Forum, Asian Forum, Caribbean Forum, Latin American Forum, and other country-specific groups for members and supporters who are from or linked to the large, international communities.”
