The 1987 general election brought a breakthrough for women in parliament in more ways than one. Margaret Beckett, having first been elected as an MP in 1974, had become used to the idiosyncratic arrangements in the members’ cloakroom, where “everybody has a peg, and a red ribbon to hang their sword”. Male MPs would first be given their spots, with female members squeezed together into what she calls “a little section at the end of the cloakroom”.
After the 1987 election, however, “when we came back, you couldn’t find your peg. And the attendants said: ‘Oh no, madam. There are so many of you ladies now that we can’t put you all in one group – we’ve had to do it alphabetically.’”
Their numbers were still tiny – female MPs still made up only 6.3% of the total. But even that felt really significant compared with what had gone before, says Beckett. The total number of women in the Commons had been stubbornly bumping along in the mid-20s (or lower) since the war, but the 1987 election, the first fought with Neil Kinnock as Labour leader, saw 41 women elected – 21 of them from the Labour party. In July of that year, most of that group posed, arms linked, for a cheerful picture with Kinnock, brought again into focus after the death of Betty Boothroyd earlier this week.
It’s quite a generation. The Class of ’87 included the first female Commons speaker in Boothroyd, first female foreign secretary in Beckett, two deputy leaders of the Labour party who also briefly served as party leader (Beckett and Harriet Harman), several who held cabinet positions including Harman, Clare Short and Mo Mowlam, two government chief whips in Hilary Armstrong and Ann Taylor (also the first female whip and leader of the house), and others holding too many ministerial and shadow ministerial posts to list.
Did they recognise at the time, having overcome hurdles at every stage just to be elected, that they were perhaps an exceptional group? Not at all, says Armstrong, who now sits in the Lords, “but I do know we felt we needed to have a massive amount of resilience. And that’s not such a bad thing in politics.”
The 1980s were no golden age of women’s rights, notes Dawn Primarolo, who was a single mother and had just turned 33 when she was elected that year – but it still came as a shock to find Westminster worse than elsewhere.
“The fact that you were a woman just made you a target. Some male members thought it was a legitimate way to behave, like it was a sport.” She recalls leering comments any time she crossed her legs, or speculating on her underwear, and male MPs who would stand very close in the tearoom queue making suggestive comments.
As a result, the Labour women found ways of supporting each other, she says. “We used to go in the chamber and sit next to each other when one of us spoke to support the speaking member, because the catcalls across the chamber were designed, as they always are, to undermine you and put you off.”
Taylor adds: “We were all different, but there was a sense of solidarity. We used to have more late night sittings then, and you would often find a whole group of women talking in the ladies’ members room comparing notes. Talking about some of our male colleagues, maybe.”
Each found their own way of dealing with the sexism, says Armstrong, recalling a day when she and Mowlam, who shared a flat, were in the Commons tea room. “One of our colleagues from the northern group had complained about Mo’s swearing, and he was in the tea room when we got there. So she said: ‘Oh, it’s all right, I won’t swear today. But you need to understand the real problems I’m having with my period.’ I’ve never seen anybody run faster out of the tea rooms.”
They were able, too, to offer sometimes unconventional sisterly support. She recalls Boothroyd, preparing for the pantomime ritual by which new speakers are installed in the Commons, saying to her and Mowlam: “You have to come in and sit next to me, and then when they drag me to the chair, you can look after my handbag.”
For Kinnock, the jump in female numbers in 1987 gave momentum to attempts to increase the number of women in the Labour shadow cabinet – rule changes introduced in 1989 brought their number to four. “I celebrated this by going to the PLP meeting [and saying], ‘I’d like to congratulate the parliamentary party on this real step forward for proper recognition of women in politics. And nobody’s willy has dropped off.’”
In 2019, 220 women were elected to parliament, still only a third of the total. But for the first time in Labour’s history, most of its MPs are female. Huge changes have happened, notes Kinnock, “but there is further to go”.
Labour’s class of 1987
The MPs pictured above are:
Back, left to right
Joan Ruddock (now Dame)
Newly elected to Lewisham Deptford in 1987, she went on to hold several junior ministerial posts in the Blair and Brown governments, mostly in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the then Department of Energy and Climate Change. She stood down in 2015.
Clare Short
MP for Birmingham Ladywood from 1983. An outspoken leftwinger who was Tony Blair’s international development secretary for six years, until she resigned from the cabinet over the Iraq war and later left the party. She left parliament in 2010.
Audrey Wise
Having formerly been elected in 1974 and then lost her seat, she ran again for Preston in 1987 and represented it until her death in 2000.
Hilary Armstrong, now Lady Armstrong of Hill Top
In 1987, Armstrong was elected to the North West Durham seat her father had held in. She was close to Blair and held several ministerial roles in his governments, succeeding Ann Taylor as chief whip in 2001. She was made a peer in 2010.
Harriet Harman
First elected in 1982, Harman has held many ministerial and shadow ministerial posts, including solicitor general, minister for women and leader of the Commons. She was a longtime deputy Labour leader under Gordon Brown and briefly served as leader. She has said she will stand down at the next election.
Mo Mowlam
Another 1987 newcomer, she represented Redcar until 2001. Mowlam was Northern Ireland secretary only fortwo years from 1997 but played a critical role in the tortured negotiations that led to the Good Friday Agreement, even while being treated for a brain tumour. She died in 2005, aged 55.
Joan Lestor, later Lady Lestor of Eccles
First elected in 1966, she had lost her seat in 1983 but returned to represent Eccles from 1987 to 1997. She had briefly chaired the Labour party under James Callaghan in the 70s.
Joan Walley
Represented Stoke-on-Trent North from 1987 until she stood down in 2015.
Ann Taylor, now Lady Taylor of Bolton
An MP from 1974, she returned in 1987, after losing her first seat, to represent Dewsbury until 2005. Taylor was Westminster’s first female whip during the turbulent Callaghan government and later the first woman chief whip, leader of the Commons and lord president of the privy council. She was made a peer in 2005.
Betty Boothroyd, later Lady Boothroyd of Sandwell
A former dancer and secretary, she was elected to represent West Bromwich in 1973, staying in the Commons for 27 years. Between 1992 and 2000 Boothroyd was the first female speaker; she then moved to the Lords. She died on 26 February.
Front, left to right
Dawn Primarolo, now Lady Primarolo of Windmill Hill
A young single mother newly elected in 1987 to Bristol South, she served as a Treasury minister under Tony Blair and was a health minister and minister for families under Brown. She was deputy speaker until leaving parliament in 2015 and is now a peer.
Alice Mahon
An outspoken leftwinger and frequent rebel against the Blair governments. Mahon was 49 when first elected to parliament in 1987, representing Halifax until 2005. She died in January.
Margaret Beckett (now Dame)
First elected in 1974 and appointed a whip and then minister soon afterwards, she is the longest serving female MP (with a break when she lost her seat in 1979). Beckett was the first female foreign secretary and has been environment secretary and leader of the Commons, as well as Labour’s deputy leader, acting briefly as leader after John Smith’s death.
Diane Abbott
Abbott’s election in 1987 made her the first black woman MP. She stood unsuccessfully for the party leadership in 2010 and went on to hold several senior positions in Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet, culminating in shadow home secretary until 2020.
Neil Kinnock, now Lord Kinnock of Bedwellty
Labour leader 1983-1992.
Jo Richardson
A formidable campaigner for women’s rights on the party’s left wing, Richardson represented Barking from 1974 until her death in 1994.
Ann Clwyd
MP for Cynon Valley from 1984 until 2019. Clwyd held several shadow ministerial posts and chaired the PLP in 2005, but gained most profile through her campaigns for Iraqis under Saddam Hussein (she was a vocal supporter of the 2003 invasion) and the NHS.
Llin Golding, now Lady Golding of Newcastle-under-Lyme
Golding was elected to parliament in 1986, winning the seat her husband, John, had just vacated to take up a union post. She represented Newcastle-under-Lyme until 2001 and now sits in the Lords.
Female Labour MPs not pictured: Joyce Quin, Maria Fyfe, Gwyneth Dunwoody, Mildred Gordon.
