Election quick hit: check up on candidates in your constituency with Fawcett
by Jess McCabe // 6 May 2010, 10:28
The Fawcett Society asked prospective parliamentary candidates from up and down the country these three questions. Would they:
1. Support local and national action to tackle the gender pay gap? (yes/no)2. Increase support services for women victims of rape as well as address the low level of rapes that end in a conviction? (yes/no)
3. Work with Fawcett and others to ensure that both local and national deficit cutting proposals are assessed in terms of how they would impact on women - both regarding access to public services and women’s income’s? (yes/no)
You can download a PDF of the responses received from Fawcett's website. (In the consistency where I live the Labour and Green candidates said yes to all three questions, but frustratingly the Lib Dem incumbent Simon Hughes and Tory candidate didn't respond, for example). There is a short list of candidates that replied no to all three questions,
Gordon Brown and Nick Clegg answered yes to all three questions, but Fawcett says the Conservatives' Cameron "responded with the Tories policy position in the relevant areas" (I did email them asking what his answers were but didn't get a response from them.)
A breakdown of the results does not give a good showing to the Tories:
- 2.6% of Conservative Party PPC’s contacted answered ‘yes’ to all 3 questions
- 23.9% of Labour Party PPC’s contacted answered ‘yes’ to all 3 questions
- 25.7% of Liberal Democrat PPC’s contacted answered ‘yes’ to all 3 questions
- 59.5% of Green Party PPC’s contacted answered ‘yes’ to all 3 questions
Fawcett also offers an interesting breakdown of the percentage of women that replied, relative to the overall percentage of women PPC’s standing for election for each party:
- 46% of responses from Conservative Party PPC’s were from women, compared with 24% standing overall
- 38% of responses from Labour Party PPC’s were from women, compared with 30% standing overall
- 31% of responses from Liberal Democrat PPC’s were from women, compared with 21% standing overall
- 33% of responses from Green Party PPC’s were from women, compared with 33% standing overall
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Julie K // Posted 06 May 2010 at 11:13
I don't know about "up and down the country" - they don't seem to have asked any Scottish candidates, judging from that list (or at least, no responses from any Scottish candidates are listed - I can't believe NONE of them would have replied to the survey!), although I did spot a couple of Welsh ones. Hence I can't find out how PPCs in my constituency would've voted.... we are having an election up here too, y'know!
Laura Vivanco // Posted 06 May 2010 at 11:16
'parliamentary candidates from up and down the country'
If by 'up and down the country' you mean 'up and down England', then that seems to be true. When I looked at the pdf I couldn't see any mention of candidates from other parts of the UK.
Jess McCabe // Posted 06 May 2010 at 11:32
I've got to admit I didn't have a deep look at the PDF and just copied Fawcett's wording on what their survey covered - might be an idea to get in touch with them directly on that one.
Kate // Posted 07 May 2010 at 20:43
After the fact, but...
I also wanted to point out that the document, though a great idea, completely excludes Scotland. The use of an 'English region' column heading suggests this was part of the design of the research. Disappointing, to say the least.