Standing in the crypt of St Mary’s Church Lewisham asking local Lib Dem members to select me as their parliamentary candidate last summer I did wonder if my very pregnant stomach would put them off. During the selection campaign only one had asked me how I was going to do it with a new baby. “With the help of my partner, several doting grandparents and how about you too?”, was my reply.
Having fought an election campaign while pregnant, then through the first eight months of my baby daughter’s life, I want to let other women thinking of doing the same know that it is possible. It even has some advantages provided you get the help you need to do it.
Why should other Lib Dem Voice readers care? Because as Dinti Batstone highlighted in her research for the party into the under-representation of women among our MPs, ‘too many experienced female candidates self-select out just as their male contemporaries are fighting winnable seats’. And the main reason for that is the perceived incompatibility of the task with family life.
The first thing that helps make it possible is lots of help with childcare. Before I had my daughter I thought I would be able to feed her at the same time as giving a media interview or proof-reading a Focus. I hadn’t bargained on the inbuilt radar babies have which makes them scream when you’re not giving them attention.
In the early months it was easier because newborns sleep a lot. Through the ice and snows of the start of the year I strapped baby Bo onto my front with our marvelous baby Bjorn carrier (another must) and took her out canvassing on the doorsteps. Wrapped up warm and reassured by the sound of my voice she would wake up and peep at the new faces behind each door. There was nothing like turning up with a baby to show people that you were, after all, just a normal human being like them.
For the last eight weeks of the campaign when you’re working around the clock it’s critical to have another pair of hands to pass the baby over to. We booked in grandparents to stay with us, look after baby Bo, and in between times help deliver leaflets and put up stakeboards.
Local members were another godsend. One kind family babysat for her each week so I could canvas unencumbered, and lent me their flat keys so I could pop in and change her and warm bottles. At stuffing parties Bo would roll around the elastic band piles providing welcome entertainment for our hard-working volunteers.
There is nothing quite as unfriendly to babies as election day itself. Yes she woke us up for the 5am Flying Start but the all day knock-up through to the count is not suited to a baby that’s still breastfeeding. I had to get some sleep with her that night, leaving the superhumans who went on to the count. But at 7am the next day when Bo and I went along to hear the results, even the rudest of our political opponents had to stop sneering at the sight of a bouncing baby squawking at them.
So what was the result? Well we didn’t win, but Lewisham Deptford had one of the biggest increases in Liberal Democrat vote share in London, up over 5%, local party membership increased by 50% in the nine months up to the election and in particular I was proud to help get a new Lib Dem Councillor elected in one of our target wards – one of very few London council seats gained in May (and the only one gained from third place).
Tam Langley was Liberal Democrat Parliamentary candidate in Lewisham Deptford in 2010. You can keep up with her at her Facebook page.
12 Comments
Well done for doing that. Good to see you decided to go for it and had such good support from your local party.
My mum stood for Parliament three times when I was a kid, albeit a little older. It was really exciting having her all active & alive and doing so many things. We got to see a lot, go to different schools, interact with different people and the public meetings were intense. I remember enjoying delivering leaflets in tower blocks in Poplar, in contrast to the leafy drives of where we lived in Bucks. I wonder if this contributed in any way to my later being a councillor in Tower Hamlets and doing yet more tower block delivery!
This woman is a fantastic campaigner and her support team were great. I’ve been impressed for a long time and recruited her to become a trustee of a charity I help to run. Anyone got tips on rising stars in other parties?
This is heartwarming stuff.
I too was selected when I was pregnant (but not showing!). Most in the local party were truly supportive but I am afraid by no means all. There has to be some system of maternity leave for candidates. Things like being given local party business to attend to TWO DAYS after an emergency Caesarean and having to breastfeed in the toilet at meetings (so as not to distress the faint hearted) completely ground my morale down in the end.
Ruth, I would have hoped the former was just common sense – there’s no way a PPC of either sex undergoing any other kind of invasive surgery would be landed with work so soon. As to breastfeeding in the toilet, THAT is diabolical. I can’t believe we don’t have rules in place making party events “breastfeeding friendly.” We certainly should.
Benjamin, I think the interesting thing here is that a PPC is a volunteer and therefore has none of the rights of an employee (eg to maternity/paternity leave, right to breastfeed/express milk in the workplace, right to leave in the event of miscarriage etc) – there must be a common sense way round this but the party certainly hasn’t found the answer yet. When I asked someone on my regional exec about my statutory rights he told me that none existed!
Ruth, when you were told you as a PPC don’t have any statutory rights, you were told wrong.
There is clear precedent from the run up to the 1997 general election – when Labour men successfully challenged the legality of all-women shortlists – that says that PPCs and hopeful PPCs *are* covered by employment law – essentially since PPCships are the way you apply for the job of MP, making it akin to the interview process – giving you all the protections of anti-discrimination law that that status entails. That means that theoretically any woman who was pushed out of a PPCship or PPC selection due to pregnancy (or indeed for reasons of disability, gender, ethnicity, etc) would probably have a good case for sex discrimination at an employment tribunal. The provisions of the Human Rights Act might well have an impact too.
Outside statutory law, there is a clear obligation not to discriminate in the Liberal Democrat Federal Constitution – binding on all Party officials at all levels, which could be enforced within the Party through the system of internal appeal panels (and probably an employment tribunal too). So the next time someone tells you that you don’t have any rights to be treated in an appropriate manner, please make sure you correct them!
I agree with everything that has been said about the need to be a much clearer protocol on how local parties should deal with pregnancy and other issues – preferably following best practice in industry – and that the three State Candidates Committees should make drawing up these guidelines a priority. BUT – just because these rights haven’t been formally written down doesn’t mean you don’t have legal protections: you just need to make damn sure that people know about them and respect them!
Hooray – more power to you, baby Bo and her daddy too!
FYI Emily Gasson and I are running a training session Tuesday morning at Conference about being a candidate with young kids. Would be great if you could join us and share your experiences.
Dinti
Chris thanks for setting out the legal position so clearly and it certainly sounds from Ruth’s dreadful experience like a protocol would be helpful. It’s true there were some squeamish responses on occasion when I had to breastfeed at local party events – there is definitely still some prejudice out there (just as there is in wider society).
Something else I wanted to say in my article was that I don’t know how I would have done it without my partner (and agent!) Rob. I don’t want to put off people who don’t have similarly enthused and talented other halfs but I know it would have been impossible for me without him. Yes Dinti I’d love to come to your session. And thanks Keith for the kind words. Tam x
It’s really great to read this – some of the earlier discussions on candidates with young children were about the bad cases. As Chris and Ruth say there needs to be better protection of PPC’s rights and a more helpful attitude across the whole party so that more people have a good experience like Tam’s.
And as for an answer to your question, they certainly can in Sweden: Liberal Minister for Europe Birgitta Ohlsson has been campaigning across the country with baby and husband in tow. Though depressingly when she was appointed a minister when she was pregnant a debate immediately blew up about whether she could handle being both a minister and a mother of a baby. Strangely enough no such debates happened when two male ministers had new children…. It seems even in Sweden that prejudices die hard.
I was first elected as a councillor when pregnant and showing. A few people made adverse comments, but not many. Fourteen years later I am still a councillor and have found being a mother to be complementary to the role and in many cases very useful to understand points of view from different sides.
However I do think the public and some in the party still has a problem with mothers being MPs or holding higher office in a council. My worst experience was a few years ago, when another female seeking selection as a PPC was caught making remarks to local party members about my inability to commit 100% to being PPC, as I then had a small child.
I’ve just read your great article Tam. Thanks so much for posting it as it’s truly inspirational stuff.