Gloria De Piero selected to stand in Ashfield

A friend from university days has just been selected to fight the safe seat of Ashfield - vacated by Geoff Hoon. Probably the best thing Geoff has done for the Labour Party in the last week is hand over his seat to a woman who I've no doubt will be a fantastic MP. She's done a fabulous job of being a reporter of independent mind, whilst knowing where her roots are and what she believes in. She now joins the 186 women candidates selected so far to stand in the General Election. Sure, some are in non-safe seats. But many are in winnable if not safe seats. Still not enough though - as a male member of the Labour Party who was a union official negotiating for equal pay for women in the sixties (before Labour's Equal Pay Act) said to me yesterday, we need to see a better gender balance in parliament. For the full list of Labour's women candidates, take a look at
http://www.labourwomensnetwork.org.uk/lwn.html.