I had no idea whether as leader I would have needed to copy the Labour party in requiring, at least occasionally, an all-women list. But I thought it vital to change the kind of people selected as Tory candidates, and as part of that the parliamentary party needed more women. At least I had to have the tactic of all-women shortlists up my sleeve in case gentler persuasion failed.
It was extraordinary but for that MP the shortlist issue was decisive. The Tory party had been annihilated in a general election for the second time and was then being offered by the candidates three distinct visions for its future. Yet an esoteric issue of internal party management struck him as more important than anything. His clear-sightedness has been rewarded: he is now a shadow minister.
I was reminded of the incident when last week Lord Bell (former public relations guru to Margaret Thatcher) commented in a BBC4 programme that while David Cameron has successfully made people think that he is different from what they expect a Tory leader to be, “the Conservative party has not moved an inch”.
That is largely true. Much of the parliamentary party is reactionary and unattractive to voters. Their attitude to their fellow human beings is ungenerous. Their real interests in life are the narrow issues of taxation, immigration and Europe that obsess the party. That tunnel vision sets many Tory MPs apart from voters whose main concerns are not political at all, but to the extent that they are, focus on their children’s schooling and their family’s health.
That chunk of the Tory party longs for Cameron to fail. Lord Tebbit spoke for them in an article last week in which he dismissed Cameron’s lead in the opinion polls as flimsy evidence of success. In Tebbit’s version of history the Tories did better at the 2005 election under Michael Howard because they at least “moved up from their bedrock vote” in spite of “a largely content-free campaign”. Another way of putting it is that the party was crushed yet again despite a narrow-minded and reactionary manifesto that pleased most of its MPs. That finally tested to destruction the theory that all the party needed for victory was an unambiguously right-wing platform.
What Bell might have added is that it does not matter that the parliamentary Conservative party has not changed. What is important is that Cameron, and a few like-minded individuals, are in charge and can impose their will. The Labour party had not altered when Tony Blair began to transform its image and purpose. As Tony Benn has commented wryly, new Labour is the smallest party in history. By analogy, the Tory modernisers can be a tiny faction. As long as Cameron has control of the party, it is of little concern whether its members have become converts or not.
Remaining leader depends on results. Blair has lasted 12 years at the head of a recalcitrant and substantially unchanged party because he has won three elections. Cameron is the first Tory leader to get ahead of Blair in the opinion polls, which perhaps explains why Tebbit wishes to pooh-pooh their findings.
Like Blair Cameron can shape the look of his party by influencing the selection of new candidates. The greatest moderniser in the party — as it were, more papist than the Pope — is not Cameron but Francis Maude, his lugubrious party chairman. He is a reforming zealot disguised as Eeyore. At first it was easy to lampoon his creation of an A-list of candidates of whom half are women and 10% from ethnic minorities. When the selectors for the Bromley by-election rejected the list and chose a traditional Tory type, a middle-aged white male (Bob Neill), the leadership appeared to be losing its internal battle.
Things look different now. In recent weeks, the safe seat of West Worcestershire (from which Sir Michael Spicer, the chairman of the powerful 1922 Committee, will step down) has decided to field Harriett Baldwin, a head of currency management at JPMorgan. Karen Bradley, a tax expert, has been selected for the new Staffordshire Moorlands constituency, which she should win, and Anna Soubry (a single mother, formerly a television presenter, now a barrister) has been chosen to fight the marginal Broxtowe. Although on Thursday a local man beat off two A-list women in the selection for Dorset South, about a third of safe and winnable seats have now selected women.
Selection procedures have been altered radically. They used to culminate in a speech from the platform to the local Conservative association (which, of course, constitutes only a tiny part of the parliamentary electorate). That procedure more or less guaranteed victory for the Tory Boy, maybe an investment banker with shiny shoes and a dishy wife. Whether he could relate to constituents on a council estate or provide help to a victim of loan sharks went untested. It scarcely mattered if he had the voter appeal of television’s Alan B’Stard.
Nowadays the three short-listed candidates are questioned in a television-style interview. I shall be the inquisitor in tomorrow night’s selection in Eltham in the London borough of Greenwich. The questions will be designed to test the candidates’ commitment to public service and their empathetic skills. In advance of the meeting each has been sent to meet residents in three streets. Their reports on their experiences should provide the selectors with clues about how they would tackle their work in the constituency if elected to parliament.
The Eltham meeting will be open to any local resident, Conservative or not, who has registered to attend. There is therefore a danger that the meeting could be packed by one of the three finalists or indeed by the Labour party. But the risk is worth taking because admitting “outsiders” forces the party to understand that it should choose the candidate who appeals to the voters, rather than the one that Tory members like.
Of course the party does not want only accountants and bankers, even if they are female. The imbalance between the sexes is only one way in which Tory MPs look unrepresentative of the electorate. Where are the nurses, teachers and shopkeepers? Such people have never thought that the party wanted their services. Some are coming forward now but they lack political awareness and interview skills. So an organisation (Women2Win) has sprung up within the party to offer them training and mentoring.
To a worrying extent, how to win a selection is something that can be taught. But if in future the selectors are normally not just party aficionados, learning the right glib answer will become more complicated. When asked with whom you would most like to have dinner, do you reply “Nelson Mandela” (a splendidly counter-intuitive response from a Tory) or “Margaret Thatcher” (to scoop the Conservative voters in the room)? The best answer should be the one you really feel.
In 2001 I refused to rule out all-women lists because in the Labour party they gave the impression female applicants stood a chance. That stimulated better potential candidates to step forward. Not every Blair babe was good, but on average they were no worse than the men who were selected. Getting a hundred women elected to parliament undoubtedly helped Labour to look more modern and less careerist.
Transforming a party requires serenity and many years of work. That is why it is best to choose a young leader. At the next election, flanked by many MPs who have indeed not moved an inch, Cameron’s message of change will remain only partly convincing and he will find it impossible to win. But as the opportunity arises he will alter the look of those who fill the benches around him. Patiently he must wait for retirements (and the grim reaper) to help him on his way.
