So here comes Nicola. Tomorrow we bid farewell to Alex Salmond and wave in Nicola Sturgeon, who makes her maiden speech as SNP leader this weekend at the SNP’s annual conference in Perth.
Tickets for this year’s conference are like gold dust. As are those for her rock star road shows, which sell out the Hydro even faster than Kylie.
Clearly in Scotland we are bucking the trend when it comes to disliking politicians. And it’s even better because Nicola will be bucking the trend of male First Ministers. When asked recently about it Alex Salmond said: “She is absolutely ready for this role. She has outstanding ability and she’ll be Scotland’s first female First Minister, which is important.” With there soon to be three female leaders at Holyrood, he added: “It makes an effective contrast to Westminster.”
Things seems to be moving in the right direction for the party in terms of female representation, with some great female SNP candidates coming forward for the Westminster election next year, some of whom come from a background in the wider Yes movement. Of course many from the Yes movement have joined the SNP. I see this as the biggest opportunity for the party’s continued success, which Nicola is best placed to capitalise on.
So, how as a party does the SNP harness the energy of new members, many of whom joined as activists for independence? There is certainly only so much leafleting and canvassing a party can do although don’t tell Nicola’s husband that.
The unflappable Peter Murrell and his team are working flat out to get membership cards to the 60,000 new members who have brought the party’s total membership to around 85,000. In contrast, Scottish Labour’s membership currently sits at less than 13,500. The political compass of Scotland has certainly changed.
Both locally and nationally, the party needs to move fast to hold on to its new members and to ensure the women who are not usually in the room stay in the room.
That could mean new women’s members’ events for each branch, a more social, participatory and educative approach to branch meetings shedding some of the unnecessary and stuffy procedures or a more grass roots approach to policy formation, providing a forum for new members to really invigorate the policy development of the party, as has been echoed by the candidates in the deputy leadership contest. Perhaps this is something the SNP’s national executive committee could take on to develop and implement.
One thing is for sure: you can’t truly represent your country and win over the hearts and minds of the majority if policies are developed mostly by men. Positive steps are being taken, with a formal role of a National Women’s Officer now filled with the boundless energy of Tasmina Ahmed Sheikh. She has organised a sell-out SNP Women’s Conference in Ayr later this month which includes very useful activities such as female candidate training.
The issue is that the anomaly to date has been that the SNP has not been short of strong female role models, but that hasn’t translated into elected representatives. I think the party now has the best chance it has ever had with a massive new talent pool to change that.
When asked recently if I thought Nicola was a feminist, I said “yes” because isn’t everyone who believes in equality? And she has certainly equality as an issue front and centre of her leadership priorities, though obviously not just in terms of gender, campaigning on equal pay in the #GirlsGetAhead initiative, tacking the inequality of wealth and making more progress on narrowing the gap between male and female employment. Scotland is reducing the gender gap with rates falling from 9.4% in November-January 2013 to the current rate of 5.4% while the UK is rising from 9.8% to 9.9% over the same period.
One of her first actions as party leader is backing a resolution being put forward by Cabinet Secretary for Equalities Shona Robison calling on the party to support the introduction of gender quotas on public boards. It’s a welcome move, but the SNP must go further.
While I think the party is trying hard to get as many great female candidates as possible for Westminster, I think the Holyrood election in 2016 is the real opportunity to look at moving towards a 50-50 balance.
And let’s be clear, gender equality isn’t just a “woman’s issue”. It’s an issue for men too. It’s an issue for all of us.
As the talented young actress Emma Watson said recently, in her widely acclaimed speech as UN Women Goodwill ambassador at the launch of the #HeForShe initiative: “Men I would like to take this opportunity to extend your formal invitation. Gender equality is your issue too.”
I hope you are listening, chaps.
Both the men and women in the SNP should embrace the huge opportunity of the new membership and through some proactive measures support and educate the enthusiastic new women who have joined, turning that into elected representatives and harness their ideas for campaigning and sustainable policydevelopment.
Nicola Sturgeon said last week: “My simple message is this if you are good enough and work hard enough, you can achieve anything. There should be absolutely no limits on your ambition.”
Hear hear. So let’s put it into action, boys and girls.