Every woman who is a Tory MP, every woman who has won the leadership, has had to fight to get where she is. Labour women ask Andy Burnham for quotas instead.
If Labour’s women really want a seat at the table and to hold the levers of power, they should stop moaning and throw their hats into the ring.
A cabinet minister moaned to The Times on Tuesday that Andy Burnham can’t have “more Milibands than women in the top jobs”.
There are many, many reasons why you shouldn’t have any Milibands in the cabinet. In Ed’s case, the 1,000 jobs lost in the oil and gas sector every month under his terrible net zero agenda should be 1,000 reasons enough.
But complaining that the boys haven’t given them the right jobs or that the boys are taking all the jobs, just shows that Labour’s women still don’t get it.
From Margaret Thatcher onwards, the Conservative Party has always believed in meritocracy. It is a fundamental Conservative principle. If you run a meritocracy, then you do not have to worry about jobs for the boys.
Every woman who is a Conservative MP, every woman who has ever won the leadership, has had to fight to get where she is.
By contrast, Labour women are demanding guarantees from Burnham. But the truth is he doesn’t have to give any guarantees. If none of Labour’s women are prepared to get their hands dirty and challenge him for the leadership, their demands are toothless.
In fact, it’s quite revealing that the Women’s Parliamentary Labour Party (WPLP) has written to Burnham asking him to commit to at least 50 per cent women ministers. This has nothing to do with meritocracy. It is yet more of the failed identity politics that is holding back our country.
Last week, Sir Keir Starmer tried to justify Bridget Phillipson’s lamentable tenure as education secretary by saying she grew up in poverty. As I said to Phillipson afterwards: “Growing up on a council estate is not an excuse for failure.”
I could spend all my time complaining that any criticism I get is because I am black or a woman. But I do not, because I think these are weak excuses.
When Lucy Powell, Labour’s deputy leader, was asked why the party had never had a female leader, she blamed “political discourse”, saying it means “women are put off from really going to the very top”. This is rubbish.
The reason is the type of woman Labour has spent three decades recruiting. Every woman who is a Conservative MP has had to fight to get where she is. We do not have all-women shortlists or quotas. We are made of tougher stuff.
Hilariously, Labour MPs have spent the last week making excuses that the reason Tories elect female leaders is because we act like men. The lazy stereotyping of confidence and assertiveness as male traits is yet more proof that Labour still don’t know what a woman is and probably never will.
It is 2026, not 1975. A woman was able to become leader of the Conservative Party five years before I was born. Labour should stop pretending their problem is structural misogyny. The problem is assuming they have a right to the top jobs just because they are women.
This is the same mistake that the US Democrats Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris made. The US electorate are not anti-women, they believe you have to fight for what you want. Had the Democrats put forward a better candidate, she would probably be president now.
It was not that long ago that Angela Rayner was being touted as the next Labour leader. What happened to her? Maybe if she had paid her taxes, she would still be in the running.
Louise Haigh might have fancied a tilt at the top job; instead she’s propping up Burnham. If she gets a seat at the table for being a woman, Labour are saying they couldn’t do better than a convicted fraudster to meet their quota.
Yvette Cooper is clearly qualified to be foreign secretary. Holding onto that great office of state should be an acknowledgement that she should be doing the job. Instead, it will look like she’s there because Labour women were briefing about 50 per cent quotas.
If Burnham is going to make a success of the mess Starmer has left him, he is going to need the best people in the best roles. If he puts women into jobs just to meet a quota, he does a disservice to those women and their reputations.
Labour’s problem is not structural misogyny or “political discourse”. Its problem is the women in the party who want top jobs without going through the gruelling process of fighting for them.
That letter from the WPLP is not a confident demand from a powerful lobby in the party. It is a grievance note from women who have been operating on a model of failed identity politics.
It’s time to let that go and fight for what they believe is truly theirs.
