Happy International Women’s Day. Every year, Guido looks back on the groundbreaking strides our leading political parties have made in female representation over the last few decades. This year is particularly special, as this is the first International Women’s Day since the UK added its third female Prime Minister to the scoreboard. It still counts.

Of course this does mean the Tories have provided all three lady PMs. Still, at least almost all the other parties have elected a female leader by now. Here are the trailblazers:

• Conservative Party, Margaret Thatcher, 1975
• Green Party, Jean Lambert, 1992
• Welsh Nationalists, Leanne Wood, 2012
• Scottish Nationalists, Nicola Sturgeon, 2014
• Democratic Unionist Party, Arlene Foster, 2015
• UKIP, Diane James, 2016
• Liberal Democrats, Jo Swinson, 2019
• Labour Party, NA, NA

Almost every party. Almost.

The history of Parliament Square’s Millicent Fawcett statue is a long, women-driven one:

• In 2016, feminist journalist Caroline Perez launched a campaign to install a female statue in Parliament Square after noticing the lack of female representation amongst the plinths.
• The Fawcett Society latched onto the campaign and in May an open letter signed by 42 prominent women was sent to the mayor’s office requesting a suffragette statue be erected in the square by 2018.
• Sadiq Khan agreed to the need for said statue, though wouldn’t commit to it being in Parliament Square.
• In the end a petition got 78,000 signatures and Westminster Council granted a planning application.
• Then-communities secretary Sajid Javid, and PM Theresa May, supported the campaign.

This potted history was too complex for Sadiq Khan’s Twitter feed…

A self-promoting Khan celebrated International Women’s Day this morning by boasting about all the wonderful things he has done for London’s women – including presiding over the Millicent Fawcett statue:

7/10 women Deputy Mayors. First woman Commissioners of the Met & LFB. First statue of a woman in Parliament Square. Record investment to tackle violence against women & girls. Called for misogyny to be a hate crime.

Today & every day - I'm a proud feminist in City Hall. #IWD2021 pic.twitter.com/9j50owbBdd

— Sadiq Khan (@SadiqKhan) March 8, 2021

It all reminded Guido of the classic Onion article, “Man Finally Put In Charge of Struggling Feminist Movement”. Women hold up half the sky, though Sadiq does most of the heavy lifting…

On today’s International Women’s Day, Guido thought it was time to celebrate the first female leaders of significant political parties in the UK. The timeline of trailblazers is:

• Conservative Party, Margaret Thatcher, 1975
• Green Party, Jean Lambert, 1992
• Welsh Nationalists, Leanne Wood, 2012
• Scottish Nationalists, Nicola Sturgeon, 2014
• Democratic Unionist Party, Arlene Foster, 2015
• UKIP, Diane James, 2016
• Liberal Democrats, Jo Swinson, 2019
• [Labour Party, NA, NA]

Unless Sir Keir has a big announcement to make, sadly the Labour Party can’t yet properly participate in this list…