BBC analysis shows gender divide in Midlands politics

Dame Millicent Fawcett addressing a meeting in Hyde Park - circa 1913 - as president of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies

What do the following places have in common?

Nuneaton and Bedworth, in Warwickshire; Staffordshire Moorlands; Stoke-on-Trent; Warwickshire; Wychavon, in Worcestershire.

They are all in the catchment areas of major hospitals which been big news over the years.

They all have major motorways running either through them or very close by.

They are all in the second half of the alphabet: (I've just discovered this myself, lining them up in the appropriate order).

Maybe you can think of some more. Let me know.

Interesting though this may or may not be, these connections or coincidences are of little or no great consequence.

What is genuinely significant though is that they take us to the heart of a debate triggered by the epoch-making events being celebrated this week.

The 100th anniversary of some women (and, yes, certain men) being granted the right to vote for the first time.

The anniversary of the birth, on 11 June 1847, of the leading suffragist Dame Millicent Fawcett.

Here's the real answer...

These are the only local authority areas in our part of the country where the council leaders are women.

That's five out of our total of 38 councils. Just a tick over 13%. That's below the national average.

So the next question: Who exactly are they?

Nuneaton and Bedworth Borough Council: Julie Jackson, Labour.

Staffordshire Moorlands District Council: Sybil Ralphs MBE, Conservative.

Stoke-on-Trent City Council: Ann James, City Independent.

Labour MP for West Bromwich, Betty (now Lady) Boothroyd went on to become the first female Speaker of the House of Commons

Warwickshire County Council: Izzy Seccombe, Conservative.

Wychavon District Council: Lynda Robinson, Conservative.

And women are equally thin on the ground among our region's Westminster contingent.

Out of 63 MPs, 16 are women. That's just a whisker over 25%.

Among our 39 Conservatives there are eight women; that's 21%

Labour also have eight local women MPs but that's in their smaller total of 24. Which makes their percentage higher: 33%.

Political gender gap

It's not as if the Midlands hasn't had its share of outstanding individual women who have hit very giddy heights indeed.

Having begun as Labour MP for West Bromwich, Betty (now Lady) Boothroyd went on to become the first female Speaker of the House of Commons between 1992 and 2000, and a highly-respected one at that.

Jill (now Lady) Knight served as Conservative MP for Birmingham Edgbaston for more than 30 years, between 1966 and 1997.

Caroline (now Dame Caroline) Spelman, Conservative MP for Meriden, chaired her party for two years before becoming a Cabinet minister under David Cameron.

Caroline (now Dame Caroline) Spelman, Conservative MP for Meriden, chaired her party for two years before becoming a Cabinet minister under David Cameron

Back to local government, the former Labour councillor Theresa Stewart was the first woman leader of Britain's biggest local authority, in Birmingham, between 1993 and 1999.

And another female Labour councillor, Ann Lucas, led Coventry City Council between 2013 and 2016.

So there are some conspicuous role models. It's just that relatively few other women have so far managed to follow their examples even though the UK as a whole now has its second female prime minister.

So what's really going on here?

Are women more reticent than their male counterparts about pushing themselves forward for high office?

Is there something about politics itself which women find especially off-putting?

We've already seen Labour's all-women shortlists but what else can or should be done about this by way of positive or 'affirmative' action?

These are among the questions our Staffordshire Political Reporter Sophie Calvert is putting to, among others, the above-mentioned Ann James, Leader of Stoke City Council, and Ann Lucas, the former leader of Coventry.

We'll have their answers in this weekend's edition of Sunday Politics Midlands.

And I will be joined in the studio by Dr Karin Bottom, who lectures in politics and public policy at the University of Birmingham's Institute of Local Government Studies.

I hope you will join us too, in our usual 11.00 slot on BBC One on Sunday morning, 17 June 2018.