What difference does an all-woman contest make? Not much when it’s as close as it is in Brighton!

This week’s guest blogger is Sian Berry. Sian is a writer and activist, and was Green candidate for Mayor of London in 2008.

‘Disappointing findings earlier this month from the Centre for Women and Democracy’s ‘Candidate Watch’ project.
Their new research, looking at declared candidates in General Election constituencies across the UK, concluded that the proportion of women MPs in Parliament isn’t going to leap forward this year.

Far from it, in fact. From a current total of 19% of female MPs (125 out of 650), the maximum representation women can expect to find the morning after election day will be just 5% higher – around 24%. And worse, they found that just 10 constituencies had an all-female list of Labour, Conservative and LibDem candidates; a tiny figure compared with the 205 constituencies where the line-up is all male.

But there is one constituency where things are looking up. Brighton Pavilion has not just three, but four female candidates from major parties, thanks to the presence of Caroline Lucas, Leader of the Green Party.

As a member of the Greens until recently (and someone who is still helping the party’s campaign in Brighton and their second target of Norwich South) I will declare an interest at this point. But this piece isn’t meant to be about why Brighton’s citizens should vote for Caroline (though of course I think they should!). Given the unique nature of the Pavilion contest, I wanted to look at how this four-way female battle might be different. Is gender changing the way this unusual election is being fought?

Since standing for Mayor of London in 2008, I’ve taken part in many discussions of women in politics, and have been very impressed by the research of sociologist numbers of women in the devolved parliaments in Wales and Scotland have influenced the agenda of politics.

In the National Assembly for Wales (where 47% of members are female and where the institution was set up deliberately to encourage a more consensual style of politics) both male and female AMs interviewed by the researchers felt that the presence of equal numbers of women and men changed both the policy agenda of the Assembly and the style of interaction between politicians. Equal pay, domestic violence, health and community issues have been at the forefront of legislation in Wales, and they feel there has been less pressure on AMs of both genders to adopt explicitly aggressive and ‘macho’ styles of debate.

Interestingly, however, as election time approached in Wales in 2007, AMs reported significantly more ‘adversarial’ politics in the Welsh chamber. One said “Parties are at each other’s throats in the advance of the election… the Presiding Officer is regularly having to say… ‘you don’t need to shout to make your point’.”

And so it seems to be the case in marginal Brighton, with a close contest in which three of the four parties believe they have a real chance of winning. Unfortunately, I can’t honestly conclude that this all-female contest is proving any different to a campaign involving only male candidates.

I’m following it all closely, and I’m seeing the same mix of tough positive and negative campaigning that you see in any constituency at election time. Some candidates are more negative than others, and go in for personal attacks. Others are trying to run on their record or the record of their party. But this is an election and demonstrating to the voters that there is clear blue water between you and your opponent is the aim of the game, and whilst the presence of women may bring a different style to governing, the experience in Brighton seems to be that it doesn’t matter whether you’re a man or a woman, on the campaign trail you’re in it to win it.

While I’m watching with everything crossed and hoping that the Greens will pull this off, there’s no reason to suppose that the campaign will become any less tense – or more consensual – over the next few weeks.

Betting folk currently have Caroline as the narrow favourite to win (spread-betting firm Betfair, on their Election Predict website says, “While Lucas may be favourite for now, she’s not odds-on and it looks extremely close.”) and the Tories will no-doubt fight even harder as 6 May approaches, while Labour will not want to give up on a seat they – at least on paper – hold.

So, with all to play for, we can be fairly sure that when the results come in the BBC will be going live to Brighton to witness the almost unique sight of a line-up of four strong, credible female prospective MPs.

And with the current focus on political wives, rather than political women, this can only be a good thing. As Caroline Lucas said last week in the Guardian, “Millicent Fawcett, whose husband Henry represented Brighton in the 1870s, was instrumental in getting women the vote. Let’s hope that we can make good on her legacy by a push for equal representation.”‘

If you want to follow the race in Brighton you can do so by looking at the candidate’s links below

Caroline Lucas Green Party candidate campaign website
Bernadette Millam the Lib Dem website
Nancy Platts Labour candidate campaign website
Charlotte Vere Conservative candidate campaign website