We need fewer women MPs, suggests Tory thinker

With the Conservative Party still slumping in the polls and scrabbling for relevance, has one of its thinkers hit upon an eye-catching new idea… have fewer women in Parliament?

Brian Jenner, a professional speechwriter and author for the party’s grassroots bible Conservative Home, has penned an article calling for “a strong dose of social conservatism”, including closing down Women2Win, the mentoring group that promotes the election of more Conservative female MPs.

Women2Win was set up by Theresa May and Anne Jenkin in 2005 at a time when there were only 17 female Tory MPs, a total which has now grown to 29 – a worrying total Jenner clearly feels now needs tackling.

“It’s time to dissolve Women2Win,” he writes on Conservative Home today. “I would also begin to murmur that the aspiration to have equal numbers of men and women in Parliament was a Blairite preoccupation not a truly Conservative one.

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“Dare we say it? Bringing up children in stable homes is more important than fulfilling the fantasy that women can have it all.”

He then draws a bizarre analogy with the Godfather films, suggesting it would be better if British society resembled the first outing rather more than the sequel.

“There is a good way of seeing what is at stake by comparing two films. Godfather I is the patriarchal society, with traditions, strong social bonds and pressure to conform to social roles,” he says. “Godfather II is about the collapse of traditions, the atomisation of society and the disintegration of the family… We’ve had too much of Godfather II and there is now a deep longing to return to a stronger social order.”

Still, Jenner might not be the most observant of Conservative-watchers to follow. In his article he also tells an anecdote as to how “at the turn of the century I met a young woman called Liz, who wanted to become a Tory MP. Liz asked me how she should improve her public speaking. I told her she should go to the equivalent of AA for those who have a fear of standing up in public: the American organisation, Toastmasters. And she did.

“Twenty years later I switched on my TV and to my surprise Liz was about to become prime minister… I never saw that coming.” There were, of course, two decades in between in which said Liz became an MP and served in five different cabinet positions, but perhaps Jenner was too busy watching old 1970s films to notice.