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19/02/08 : Labour celebrates 90 years of women having the vote
The Representation of the People Act which gave women in Britain the right to vote for the first time received Royal Assent on 6 February 1918.
The Labour Party was the first political party to commit to women’s suffrage, and Reading Labour Party marked the anniversary with a short ceremony outside Reading Town Hall. The site was chosen because that was where the results were declared in the 1918 General Election, the first in which women were able to vote.
Anneliese Dodds, Labour’s Prospective Candidate for Reading East, said: "Since women won the right to vote, the Labour Party has fought for greater representation of women in Parliament. Labour now has 97 women MPs (27% of the party), while the Liberal Democrats have 9 women MPs (14% of the party) and the Conservatives only 17 (9% of the party, the same proportion as are called David). So there is still much more to do, if the House of Commons is ever to represent the people who elect it, and that is why Labour selected a woman to fight Reading East at the next election.”
Cllr. Jo Lovelock, long-serving Deputy Leader of Reading Borough Council, said: "Labour has, and I think always has had, more women Councillors in Reading than the other parties put together, and I hope and believe the town has gained from our being there. But I certainly want to see more women engaged in politics, in my own party and indeed in others. And, remembering what some women went through a hundred years ago to get us the right to vote, I think women today owe it to them to use their votes, and use them wisely."
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