Tories must become ‘more female’
Conservative Shadow Cabinet member Theresa May today told her party to recruit more female candidates and learn to speak the new “feminised” political language or face more losing more elections.
Ms May, the party’s spokesperson on family issues, called for the creation of an “A-team” list of 100 high-profile candidates for the next election – of which half would be women.
Speaking to the Adelaide Group of businesswomen in London, she said the Conservatives had not adapted to a political climate in which so-called “daddy’s issues” including defence and the economy had become less important than “mummy’s issues” such as healthcare and education.
And when they did talk about core public services, they “remained trapped in the macho politico world of pounds and percentages, and failed to participate in the new age, more feminised debate about values and vision”, she added.
Policies such as choice, localism, and tax cuts were just mechanisms, not values, Ms May said: “And that means more macho politics – more narrowly-defined priorities – and less appeal to the new-age, feminised electorate who want to know about our vision, our values, and our motives.”
The Shadow Secretary of State for the Family, and Culture, Media and Sport, said the Conservative Party needed more women MPs to help regain the support of women. A ten per cent lead over Labour among women voters in 1992 had become a 12-point deficit in 1997, and those voters had not been won back.
“Failure to do so will mean continuing electoral failure,” she warned.
On her call for an “A-List” of candidates, she denied that insisting on half of them being women would be patronising or dilute the quality of candidates. There was nothing patronising about judging that the Conservatives would be more successful if their party had an even gender balance, and people who believed the party could not find 50 high-quality female candidates were ‘living in the Dark Ages’.
She said: “I firmly believe the Conservative Party will return to power again, but only when it has demonstrated a commitment to people’s values of fairness and decency. Becoming a little more female would be a great start.”
