Tag Archives: women

Britain’s new political class: All change in the House?

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Researchers on the Parliamentary Candidates UK project have spent the past two years collecting data on the social background of candidates standing at the 2015 general election, as well as building a retrospective dataset going back to 1945. Jennifer vanHeerde-Hudson discusses the project, the questions it raises and what the data tell us about the composition of the new parliament.

For the past two years, the Parliamentary Candidates UK project has collected data on the social background of candidates standing in the 2015 general election as well as building retrospective dataset for candidates since 1945. Funded by the Leverhulme Trust, the aim of the project is to provide a comprehensive, electronic, publicly available dataset on who is selected and who is elected. To this end, we will publish our dataset for 2015 Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrats, SNP, UKIP, Plaid Cymru and Green candidates later this month, with the retrospective data published over the course of 2016.

But the project was always more than just a data collection exercise: fundamentally, it is a project that seeks to know who stands for parliament at Westminster, who gets elected and whether socio-demographic characteristics influence electoral outcomes or career trajectories.

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UK elects most diverse parliament ever but it’s still not representative

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Jennifer Hudson and Rosie Campbell assess the diversity of the new parliament and write that while the Class of 2015 has more female and BME MPs, it is still a long way from being descriptively representative of the population it serves.

Ahead of the 2015 election, broadcaster Jeremy Paxman argued that voters were being given a choice ‘between one man who was at primary school with Boris Johnson and one man who was at secondary school with him – both of whom did PPE at Oxford’.

Throughout the campaign, we’ve been gathering data on the parliamentary candidates to see if this lack of choice plays out across the board. Do the people elected to represent the UK, bear any resemblance to the public they represent?

Women on the rise

This year saw 48 more women elected that in 2010 – bringing the total number of women MPs to a record 191. Women make up 29% of newly elected MPs, up from 22% in 2010.

The Green party had the highest percentage of women candidates selected at 38%, but with chances in only a handful of seats, they had little chance of affecting parliamentary gender balance.

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Behind the surge: Who are Green Party’s parliamentary candidates?

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A surge in Green Party support over the last year has the potential to impact the outcome of next week’s election. Sally Symington explores how the candidates put forward by the party reflect their supporters and contrast with other parties.

The surge in support for the Green Party in the 2015 general election has not gone unnoticed. Currently polling at 5% nationally, there are only a handful of seats where Green candidates will challenge for the top spot, but who are the 570+ candidates standing for election in 2015? Do Green Party candidates offer something different than the ‘typical’ politician—white, male and middle-aged with a lifetime’s experience in jobs ‘instrumental’ to a career in politics? Drawing on data from the UCL/Birkbeck Parliamentary Candidates UK project, we look at the social background of Green Party candidates in comparison to candidates from other parties, and in comparison to the party’s supporters. We ask, who are Green Party’s parliamentary candidates?

Gender With genuine descriptive representation, the numbers of male and female MPs, would reflect their proportions in the wider population. Of the five mainstream UK-wide parties, the Green Party has the highest percentage of female candidates, at 39%. This is a stark contrast with UKIP which has 13% female candidates – the lowest percentage of any party. 26% of Conservative candidates are female and Labour stands at 34%. However, both parties retain a large number of incumbent MPs (265 and 219 respectively) as 2015 candidates, and therefore their percent female candidates contesting 2015 is lower than the percent of new female candidates selected.

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Farewell to the Commons: Reflections on parliamentary change over 40 years

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On 4 March Jack Straw and Sir George Young spoke at a Constitution Unit valedictory event where they considered how parliament has changed since the 1970s. Sam Sharp offers an overview of the discussion.

Jack Straw and Sir George Young have 77 years of parliamentary experience between them – Straw was first elected in 1979, and Young in 1974. With both set to retire in May, they reflected on how parliament has changed since they joined in the seventies. The event was chaired by Tony Wright, while Meg Russell provided a ‘myth busting’ role. Both speakers described a parliament that has changed for the better, in both its culture and efficiency.

For Jack Straw one of the biggest changes has been in the atmosphere of the House of Commons. He remembered previously having to ‘swim through thick clouds of smoke’, with the chamber itself being the only complete escape. Alcohol abuse was also prevalent and Tony Wright recalled actually once carrying a passed out member through the division lobby. In general, parliament was very white and male with a Gentleman’s Club culture and the few women present were very much made to feel like outsiders. Straw argued that the change in the gender balance, although ‘not far enough’, has ‘actually changed how the House feels’.

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Guarded and sensible? The problem with UKIP and women

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In the wake of a second UKIP win in Rochester and Strood, Rosie Campbell, Chrysa Lamprinakou and Jennifer vanHeerde-Hudson consider how the background of UKIP candidates selected so far compare with the other parties.

Mark Reckless’s win over Conservative candidate Kelly Tolhurst in the Rochester and Strood by-election doubled the number of UKIP MPs in Westminster and reignited speculation as to who will be next to defect.

The Tory defeat in Rochester was indeed a bad day for Cameron and the party, with many commentators highlighting what was seen to be an ineffective campaign, despite reports that MPs were required to campaign in the constituency three times in the run up to 20 November. Others, however, argued it was worse day for Labour with Emily Thornberry’s controversial tweet, subsequent resignation and the fact that UKIP continues to pull Labour party supporters into its ranks. It’s a day the Lib Dems will also want to forget, polling 5th, 1300 votes behind the Greens and 150 votes ahead of the Monster Raving Looney party.

On the back UKIP’s success in Rochester and in Clacton, pollsters and pundits have turned their attention to estimating the number of seats UKIP will win come May 2015. The numbers vary considerably: projections range from 5, 30 or even 128 seats. Back in 2013, Farage claimed that UKIP would put a UKIP candidate in every parliamentary seat. However, given the rate of UKIP selections to date, this appears (perhaps as it did from the start) highly unlikely. Instead, and on the back of success in both by-elections, UKIP will have to concentrate its campaign resources on its target seats—reaching out to a broad base of potential supporters in those seats.

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