Ed Miliband is leading for women

Ed Miliband’s letter to Lead for Women got a bit of a mention in Julie Bindel’s article in G2 in the Guardian on Friday. We didn’t agree with her assessment of Ed’s leadership, and we sent the following letter to the Guardian to let them know that we think Ed has made a promising start [...]

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Ed Miliband’s party reforms must go further for women

Following Ed Miliband’s comments in the Guardian today, in which he announced a process of reforming Labour’s structures and policy-making mechanisms, Lead for Women have released the following statement: Ed Miliband should be congratulated for his comments to this paper on the need to reshape Labour’s policies and practices. As grassroots women Labour activists, we [...]

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Lead for Women discussed on Radio 4 Woman’s Hour

Very excitingly, we heard (from twitter) that we were namechecked today on BBC Radio 4′s Woman’s Hour with the marvellous Jenni Murray. We ‘listened again’ (as you can do here) and heard a great conversation between Jenni and Labour pollster and Lead for Women supporter Deborah Mattinson, and MP Meg Hillier, about what Labour needs [...]

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Guardian letter on shadow cabinet gender quotas

There is a (short) letter from Lead for Women activists in the Guardian today, on the subject of the PLP vote on gender quotas for the shadow cabinet. Four of the five Labour leadership candidates promised to support a 50:50 shadow cabinet. So we are disappointed the parliamentary party decided that the shadow cabinet should [...]

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Women’s hustings in the media

There are some good write-ups of Wednesday’s women’s hustings on the blogs. Rowenna Davies writes in the New Statesman: There was something rather satisfying at seeing the “young princes and top guns of New Labour” — a description used by Diane Abbott to describe her fellow candidates — being forced to seek approval from a [...]

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Labour Leader candidates divided over ‘invisible women’ campaign

Now we have received responses to our letter from all of the candidates to be Labour leader, we have published the following statement in response: Labour Leader candidates divided over ‘invisible women’ campaign All five candidates to be Labour Party leader have now responded to a call to action from grassroots women members to ensure Labour is [...]

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Lead for Women letter in the Guardian

We’re really excited to have a letter published in the Guardian today, supporting the Lead for Women letter to the Labour leadership candidates, and calling for radical action to transform our Party. The Guardian letter is signed by women from right across the Party, including NEC members, MPs and grassroots activists. Labour must lead on [...]

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Labour needs a leader to lead for women

Rachael Saunders has written a blog for Left Food Forward, arguing that Labour urgently needs a leader who will lead for women. Sadly, for many of us, the 2010 election campaign will be remembered as the one in which women were near invisible. Despite having an excellent woman deputy leader wholeheartedly committed to women’s equality, [...]

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