IT’S pointless, not to mention disingenuous, for Karen Lumley MP to protest that Worcestershire has no bias against women when it comes to selecting parliamentary candidates.
She knows as well as I do that local Conservative associations don’t get much say in the matter.
Oh, they choose – but only from candidates approved by Central HQ.
They can’t insist on their own candidates, perish the thought.
And it’s painfully obvious that David Cameron isn’t too keen on women as MPs and certainly not as ministers.
Mrs Lumley can be grateful she was one of the chosen – that is, unlikely to rock the Cameron boat.
Nor can local members go along to party conferences and ask pertinent questions. Party conferences, for both major parties, are nothing more, now, than carefully orchestrated PR exercises.
These two factors – lack of freedom to choose and lack of freedom to ask questions – probably account for party membership falling to something over two million over the years to 2010.
Since Cameron took office, that figure has halved to a little over 1.3 million. I wonder why.
Val Gaize Studley
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