Labour has never had a female leader. But some of the party’s MPs have alighted on a solution: make Andy Burnham put women in top jobs anyway.
Female Labour MPs are demanding that Burnham gives half of ministerial jobs to women and that 50 per cent of No.10 staff are female. The Parliamentary Labour Party is also calling for Labour’s new leader to commit to appointing a female Deputy Prime Minister.
Perhaps they were spurred on after The Spectator’s political editor Tim Shipman revealed, in last week’s magazine, that one senior Labour figure believes Burnham could be ‘Labour’s first woman prime minister’. The explanation: that Burnham’s interests in health, education and family finances – rather than bombs and budgets – make him ‘a female PM in all but sex’.
It is an incredible quote and has clearly got people worked up. But this next move is almost more infantilising. Can Labour really not just let their female MPs and staff stand on their own two feet and earn jobs on merit?
One female Labour MP said of the quota pitch: ‘It is all fucking nonsense’
Promote the women you believe will be good. If that doesn’t amount to 50 per cent, perhaps the others simply aren’t the right fit. There are crap women just as there are crap men. Enforcing a quota and shoving people who aren’t fit for the job onto the front bench or into No.10 does not improve equality of opportunity. It is not empowering. It does not recognise or reward the women who have genuinely earned their place. You have just met a quota.
I put it to a few Labour MPs that I thought the whole idea was absurd. One, a man with a government job, was plain: ‘Not interested. I want the best person for each job.’ A woman with a government job didn’t endorse it entirely but saw the point: ‘I do think bad decisions are made when women aren’t in the room. I also think it is important we don’t go from having three women in the great offices of state – Treasury, Foreign Office, Home Office – to three men, and that should absolutely be a 50-50 split at least.’
Amid speculation that Ed Miliband could become Chancellor and his brother David Foreign Secretary, one line is doing the rounds in Westminster: ‘You can’t have more Milibands than women in the great offices of state.’
Another female MP argues that it ‘has not really been a meritocracy up to this point’ and that men who shout loudly in the leader’s face end up with jobs over more credible women. ‘Forcing the issue with a quota as a target means you have to think about it a bit more.’
But my favourite was a different female MP who simply replied: ‘It is all fucking nonsense.’
This would not be a conversation in the current Conservative party, which is now on its fourth female leader and second ethnic minority leader, despite enduring accusations of sexism and racism. As one senior Tory put it to me: ‘Labour are on yet another white bloke straight out of central casting.’ So much so that one magazine ran a split image of Starmer and Burnham on its cover, and there was little to tell them apart.
There are practical absurdities to these quotas too. Say a woman voluntarily leaves for a new role that she has earned on merit. No.10 drops below 50 per cent women. There is a man perfect for the vacancy but no. You must replace a woman with a woman or risk the quota. Or say a minister has a scandal, for example something to do with phone theft, and obviously has to go. Her natural successor is universally acknowledged to be John Doe. Bad luck. The quota hangs over every appointment, however clear-cut. If it does dip to 49 per cent, then what happens? We shut up shop?
The Daily Telegraph reports Burnham has actually pledged to have a woman in every meeting. You can picture it: ‘Prime Minister, are we deploying the nukes? Oh god there is no woman! Someone. Quick. Drag one in.’
‘Prime Minister, are we deploying the nukes? Oh god there is no woman! Someone. Quick. Drag one in.’
And what will the public make of it? Many will wonder whether those running the country are there on merit at all. Those women who have genuinely earned their appointments may find themselves asking the same question, not knowing if they are part of a tick-box exercise.
It is all getting a bit out of hand. Labour used all-women shortlists to get more women into the Commons, only to now want quotas to get them onto the frontbench. At what point do they stop? Or is the logic that one day, if necessary, they will quota their way to a female leader and prime minister too?
Consider what the two available explanations of why it has got this far actually say about Labour. Either they don’t believe women are as capable as men and will fail to be appointed on merit, so need a helping hand. Or they do believe women are as capable as men and would be appointed on merit, but Labour would rather choose a weaker man. Both cast the party in a poor light. Both are sexist.
Comments