Introduction

Twenty years after Britain’s first woman Prime Minister took office senior women politicians are still hot news. In the mid-1990s women’s role in national politics was again thrust centre stage with the controversy over women-only short lists for constituencies to select Labour Party candidates. Following the 1997 general election women MPs remained in the limelight. There were 120 women MPs elected of whom 101 were Labour, 14 Conservative and 6 from other parties. Women now comprised 18 per cent of MPs, a big leap up from the previous parliament. The dramatic increase in women MPs came largely on the Labour benches, due to Labour’s women-only short lists, already outlawed by the time of the election, coupled with Labour’s landslide victory.