News and Comment

The latest news and commentary from the Electoral Reform Society.

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Which Women Win? The 2015 English local elections

This is a guest post by James Winterbotham, University of Exeter James Winterbotham is an undergraduate student of social sciences and data analysis at the University of Exeter. As part of a team working with...

Posted 08 Mar 2016

More women in Westminster

Back in early March, we launched our report ‘Women in Westminster’. In it, we predicted the number of female MPs who’d be elected, based on the percentage of female candidates parties were putting forward in...

Posted 14 May 2015

Women in Westminster

One of the chief reasons why people are increasingly alienated from our politics is the fact that Westminster looks so little like the people it is there to represent. At the moment, barely one in...

Posted 13 Mar 2015

Cheryl Gillan on women in politics

This is a guest post by Cheryl Gillan, Conservative MP for Chesham and Amersham and former Secretary of State for Wales. The views, opinions and positions expressed within are those of the author alone and...

Posted 29 Sep 2014

The government is still dominated by men

As the dust settles on the Government reshuffle, you would be forgiven for thinking that the genders are now fairly represented on the front benches. Nothing could be further from the truth. Despite this week’s high-profile...

Posted 17 Jul 2014

Women and Scottish independence

This blog was first posted on Engender As the date of the referendum draws ever nearer, and the gender gap in the polls shows no sign of closing, there seem to be more events targeting women...

Posted 03 Jul 2014

A bad week for women

What a dispiriting week for women. Following Maria Miller’s resignation, just three out of 22 Cabinet ministers are females – putting the UK government at a 15-year low and near rock bottom in comparison with...

Posted 11 Apr 2014

Just three out of 22 Cabinet ministers are females

What a dispiriting week for women. Following Maria Miller’s resignation, just three out of 22 Cabinet ministers are females – putting the UK government at a 15-year low and near rock bottom in comparison with...

Posted 11 Apr 2014

Only one in five ministers are female

In 2009, David Cameron pledged that a third of his ministers would be women. But even today, after a reshuffle which has increased the number of women in government by three, still only one in five ministers...

Posted 08 Oct 2013