The Spectator’s notes | 20 August 2015

Watching the very pleasant Liz Kendall on television this week, I was struck by how extraordinary it is that more than 40 years have now passed since the Conservatives selected a woman leader and still the Labour party cannot bring itself to do so. (Although, come to think of it, it took Labour 142 years to catch up with the Conservatives in selecting a Jew, so perhaps we have another century to wait.) I am not necessarily saying that Ms Kendall is the answer — she seems able, but inexperienced — but there does appear to be a serious barrier to women at the very top of the Labour party.

I suspect this is due less to old-fashioned misogyny than to the sexual politics which feature so largely in the ideology of the left. Margaret Thatcher benefited greatly from the fact that Tory MPs — the only electorate for her party’s leadership at that time — had never given the slightest thought to such questions.