The recent re-election of Tony Blair and the New Labour for a record third term was marked by a less publicized but as significant effect : the number of women MPs reached a record level, with 136 women MPs out of a full house of 645. The previous record was 120.

Significantly it was the Labour Party, which increased their share of women MPs from 93 to 113, while the Conservatives and (surprisingly) the Liberal/Democrats both had a slight fall in their share of women MPs. The explanation of the Faucett Society for this situation is that the losers (Tories & Lib/Dems) fielded women in marginal or even very marginal seats, while Labour gave their women candidates “a real chance”, with “women only in key seats”, a sort of quota in favour of the “fairer sex”.

The fact that this strategy from Labour worked will surely not be lost on party strategists in other parts of the world, including of course here! This is only logical when one knows that women form 50% or more of the electorate and are now demanding their fair share.

This is the situation in Britain,102 years after 1903 and the Suffragettes and 87 years after 1918, when women in Britain won the right to vote. And even Britain is lagging behind some Scandinavian countries where the proportion of women in Parliament is close to 50 %.

Several analysts have shown that after a given critical mass, women MPs are highly effective and their action leads to major changes in such areas as child care, flexitime in the work place, combating domestic violence, as well as education and health issues etc. And, in Britain, the Commons is said to have become more “family-friendly” with the coming of a large number of women.

<B>Paula ATCHIA</B>