IN THE NEWS
Dec 12, 2005

Cameron wants more diverse MPs.

Matthew Tempest, political correspondent
Monday December 12, 2005.

The new Conservative leader, David Cameron, announced plans today for a centralised A-list of 100 of the "best and brightest" Tory candidates to boost the number of female and ethnic minority MPs at Westminster.

In the third of his rapid-fire announcements of policy reviews and party procedure overhaul, he also suggested an end to the "testosterone-fuelled" selection speech, to be replaced instead by panel selection, allowing candidates - especially women - to demonstrate a greater spectrum of talents.

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In a speech in Leeds - where the party now has no MPs - Mr Cameron announced he wanted "to change the face of the Conservative party by changing the faces of the Conservative party."

He pledged that Tory-held seats and target seats will be requested to pick their candidates from the list, half of which will be female and with a "significant proportion" of ethnic minority and disabled candidates.

But Mr Cameron stressed that the "brightest and best" mantra does not necessarily mean "youngest and most metropolitan". He said: "This has got nothing to do with crude political calculation, or crazed political correctness."

Mr Cameron's "hit the ground running" approach has drawn the first public comment on his performance from the prime minister, who this morning said the new Tory leader should be judged "over months and years" rather than his first week in the job.

Commenting on the Tories apparent boost in the polls after Mr Cameron's election last Tuesday, Mr Blair suggested the media were giving his rival an easy ride.

He told GMTV that while it was good to have a stronger opposition "obviously the media will get behind him and give him a boost .... but it's not just about being personable and all that."

In his speech this lunchtime, Mr Cameron used the current debate over pensions to highlight the need for more Tory women. He told an audience of activists: "If you put eight Conservative men round a table and ask them to discuss what should be done about pensions, you'd get some pretty good answers.

"But what you're less likely to get is a powerful insight into the massive unfairness relating to women's pensions."

Before giving the speech, Mr Cameron had to fight off an attack from the defeated leadership candidate and former chancellor Ken Clarke, who yesterday accused Mr Cameron of a "head-banging" plan to cut the party's links with the European parliament's main centre-right group.

He said that "waltzing off" in search of new "ultra-nationalist" allies would be a disastrous way for Mr Cameron to announce himself on the world stage.

Speaking on BBC Breakfast, Mr Cameron said: "I have always said we have got to be consistent about these things. If we argue for an open, flexible trading Europe in London, then we ought to sit with parties who take the same view in Brussels and Strasbourg."

Mr Cameron campaigned hard on boosting the number of women in the party during his election campaign, even saying on being elected that there were too many "white males" like him in the party.

However, he stopped short of endorsing women-only shortlists, which some in the party are now calling for.

Today he unveiled a five-point scheme to diversify the parliamentary party, which currently has only 17 female MPs.

This includes an immediate freeze on selection procedures and an A-list of potential candidates made up of at least half women and featuring a "significant proportion" of black and ethnic minority candidates.

The new A-list would be made up of the "best and brightest" candidates from existing lists and new recruits. After three months of selections, there will be another pause to allow the process to be reviewed.

Mr Cameron was also announcing plans to headhunt and mentor women candidates. He will appeal to "every woman in Britain" and everyone from a black or ethnic minority background who shares his beliefs to apply to become a Tory MP.

He has asked party chiefs to draw up an intensive programme of headhunting and mentoring to encourage the best candidates to come forward.

There will also be a recruitment programme, backed by advertising. And local constituencies will be given guidance to change their selection processes so they test the full range of candidates' skills. That could include Question Time-style panels.

Finally, Conservative-held and target seats will be told to involve non-party members in the selection process.

That could be through community panels or primaries in which anyone in a constituency registered as a party supporter will be entitled to choose between a shortlist of candidates from the priority list selected by the local association.

Like the current US system of hustings, it would vulnerable to rival parties packing meetings and sabotaging selection.

A spokeswoman for the Fawcett Society, which campaigns for equality between women and men, said: "Fawcett welcomes this long overdue reform and hopes this will make Conservative selections much fairer to women.

"More women MPs is good news for everyone - for the party wanting to appeal to voters; to the many excellent women candidates wanting to stand; and to the public, which wants a more diverse group of MPs.

"Fawcett calculated after the last general election that at the current rate it would take 400 years for the Conservatives to reach equal numbers of women and men MPs. Today we hope the party has moved forward by not just years, but by centuries."

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