Should the Tories consider all-women shortlists?

That’s a question I never thought I’d ask. Women shouldn’t need to be patronised by creating a special class of system to run for election. But with the announcement of the Conservative Government’s PPS list yesterday I was shocked to note that only 8 out of 43 appointments were women. That’s a mere 18.6 percent of the list. At 21 percent of the Conservative parliamentary party, women are still too under represented, despite the valiant efforts of our Prime Minister and Baroness Jenkin through Women to Win and similar party efforts to encourage more female candidates. To give the Prime Minister credit where it’s due, out of all of the ministerial and whips positions available to MPs – rather than peers – my (admittedly very rough) estimate is that 25.5 percent of these positions are now held by women, slightly outstripping our representative share of the Parliamentary party without completely depleting our female talent on the select committees.