Labour Women

Labour North West Women’s group

As a women’s officer - or someone who might be interested in getting more women involved in the Labour Party - there are lots of things you could do. Here are some ideas that have been successful across our region...

Using the internet for campaigns – Debbie Caine, Liverpool

Lots of women can’t make meetings because of childcare, like me. I use Facebook to discuss politics from home and through new new media and have organised protests and meeting points we could attend that are child friendly.

Supporting women in political positions – Bolton

We invited all Labour women across Bolton and encouraged them to bring friends too. The purpose of the day was to talk about how to get better representation of women in politics and to offer training. The training we offered included – Make the most of meetings, getting selected and public speaking. The day was hosted by Bolton MPs Julie Hilling and Yasmin Qureshi who shared their experience and skills.

Training for women: Manchester Women’s Forum

Training is a key element of what Manchester Labour Women’s Forum does. We have ran several training opportunities for Manchester women. These have included getting elected, effective canvassing and community organising. We try and arrange an activity straight after our training where we can put into practice what we’ve just learnt. Often we go and use our new campaign skills to help other women get elected across the city.

Talking about politics and policy – Manchester Women’s Forum

Many issues effect women specifically but women also care about wider political issues too.We recently held a women’s listening panel with guest speakers MEP Arlene McCarthy and MP Hazel Blears. The subject was the economy and the credit crunch with the title "What if Lehman Brothers had been sisters?" This allowed us to look at the impact of the recession on women and feed back positive ideas of how to support women in tough times.

Being social together – Manchester Women’s Forum

We decided that being Labour women wasn’t always about campaigning and talking politics. We organised a visit to Manchester Gallery followed by lunch. It was really nice to get together to talk about something else other than politics! Having a social aspect to what we do gives us a chance to get to know one another better and offer support to one another. It also gives us an opportunity to network politically.

Campaigning with women – Trafford

Labour women from all three Trafford CLPS met together for a coffee morning and for a cheese and wine evening to get to know each other and plan how women could campaign . These two social events led to us deciding to design a special leaflet about women and the cuts. We ran a women’s street stall together before the local elections