A lack of female MPs will cost political parties dearly

Male, stale and pale rarely has that jibe carried more weight.

There was David Cameron, sitting nervously before Prime Minister’s Questions, waiting for the first grenade to be lobbed by Ed Miliband.

Out of the blue, the Labour leader came up with a killer not about floods or the economy but about the total absence of women around Big Dave.

Usually, there are one or two female Ministers. But Theresa May was abroad and Maria Miller was late. So Ed Miliband got wired in.

“A picture tells a thousand words. Look at the all-male front bench ranged before us,” he mocked.

“The Prime Minister says he wants to represent the whole country, Mr Speaker, I guess they didn’t let women into the Bullingdon Club either!”

For the uninitiated that’s an exclusive Oxford University dining society. In one fell swoop the Labour leader managed to make the Tories look like a bunch of preening, male toffs. But David Cameron fought back.

“This party is proud of the fact we had a woman Prime Minister. To be fair to Labour, they have had some interim leaders who are women but have this habit of replacing them with totally ineffective men!”

Indeed to be fair to Dave, there was one woman sitting behind him Anne McIntosh, the Conservative MP deselected this week after a row with her constituency party. Whoops! One local apparently dismissed her as a “silly girl.” Now Anne is 59 and chairs a Select Committee. True Blue she may be, silly girl she ain’t.

So Ed clearly won the day but did he win the argument? Some papers made great play of the fact women voters prefer David Cameron (34% to Ed Miliband’s 24%) as Prime Minister. Amongst men, Ed does slightly better. But Ed’s party beats Dave’s with the gals.

YouGov found Labour leads the Tories by nine points among female voters but is just three points ahead amongst men. Folk vote for parties, not Prime Ministers. So there’s a moral there for Dave move mountains to get more women into power.

Twice as many Labour MPs are women and twice as many Labour Shadow Ministers are women. Call me simple-minded, but if a party gets twice as many women in power, it gets twice as many female votes. It could be just as simple as that.

What about Scotland?

At last year’s White Paper launch, Nicola Sturgeon made affordable childcare the SNP’s priority. As a result, polls show the gender gap is narrowing, though more men still back independence then women.

The Deputy First Minister also pledged quotas to get more women into board rooms if Scotland votes Yes. That’s even bolder, but in quota-using countries such as Norway, France, Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands and Germany, the stabilising presence of women at the helm has helped stop testosterone-crazed young pups sparking another financial crash with cocky, short-sighted behaviour.

Ironically, quotas could succeed here because Labour’s already been pushing for them. And that’s because Labour has more female MSPs (47%) than the SNP with 25%. Even the Tories do better at 40%.

No wonder some gals hae their doots about independence as a women-friendly Nirvana.

The proof of the pudding is always in the eating. The unsavoury spectacle of cybernats attacking Sarah Smith before she’s even taken over as Newsnight Scotland anchor with an all-female team doesn’t help either.

Ed rubbed Dave’s nose in it this week over his all-male line-up that can only be done by a party with a long, proven track record on gender equality. Take note, SNP.