A big theme of the site has been the political disenfranchisement of men through the political process by stopping them from being able to stand as MP's or other candidates. This is down to the invidious all-women shortlists used by the Labour Party (Labour used it 58 times at last year's General Election) and A-lists/quotas and other discriminatory tactics used by the Conservatives (Four of their MEPs are sitting in Brussels solely because they are women).

Only 22% (143 of 650, an improvement from 128 in 2005) MP's are women but that is down to Labour's defeat (few of those 58 got elected and many others who were previously MP's because of all-women shortlists also lost - ex Home Secretary Jacqui Smith being an obvious example). Of course, this is irrelevant to the big battalions from the Fawcett Society, who see anti-female discrimination everywhere - a form of Feminist McCarthyism.

However, it is apparent that Labour are continuing with the practice in:

Dover

Harlow

Reading West

Worcester (Labour councillor resigns in protest)

Peterborough (plus this from the local elections Peterborough)

Stevenage

Swindon South

Hastings & Rye

Northampton North

Lincoln

Thurrock

Brighton Kemptown

Burton or Redditch

No man in those seats should vote Labour when men have banned from standing.

Now the Liberal Democrats are getting in on the act. They have announced specialist leadership programmes for women only and also want to fiddle the selection process so it is heavily skewed towards women (Guardian). Basically it is an A-List similar to the one adopted by the Conservatives for its 2010 selection round. This is where there were 100 people on the A-List and only they could apply for the best seats and explicitly over 50% on the A-Lists were women.

Rather than try to find out why do not want to stand and whether they are bothered about it, the parties bring in rules to stop men from seeking office on the sole criteria that they are men. This sexism is probably the most serious of all, because men are being prevented from getting into the legislature. That is what is called British democracy these days.

Posted by Skimmington