To think it's time for a woman to be Prime Minister

[Cinnamon77]

It doesn't look like Starmer is going to be PM for much longer but all the favourites to replace him are men.

Every female PM we've had has been Conservative - no woman has ever led the Labour Party before.

Wouldn't it be an improvement to have a left wing woman running the country, like we've seen elsewhere? There are many good female MPs in Labour like Raynor, Mahmood, Huq, Phillips, Siddiq, Leadbeater, Thornberry, Dodds, Kendall, Haigh, Butler and Reeves (Ellie, not Rachel).

Why aren't any of them contenders and wouldn't we be doing better if one of them was in charge?

It would be an improvement if a more right wing female was pm, left wing? No thanks

You can't listen to the electorate anymore, there is no 'we', no consensus, no general will, we are ungovernable

I’m a Labour supporter (tho am very disappointed in the current government).

I also agree that the leader of a party needs to be based on merit and ability.

Having said that it’s a bit embarrassing for the major party of the left, which in theory ought to be progressive, never to have had a female leader and, by extension, a female PM.

That the Conservatives have had three by comparison (I appreciate Truss was more of a brief moment of madness for them) is a real weak spot for Labour.

I wanted Rayner or Cooper to succeed Starmer. Guess I’ll have to hope it’s Cooper now!

wont go back to Tory now they’ve lived away from their one nation centre party politics and don’t know who'll
vote for at next GE (not reform!) but I’d like to see a woman in charge of Labour if they are as or more competent than the men up for selection.

A bit of an overstatement and no different to the past. You see the detail of the debates now because you’re living in them. History becomes a broad sweep certain events and debates. The general squabbling and factionalism get lost over time but they were there.

I'm quite a fan of Thornberry and even I can see that she would be a bad choice as leader!

100 to 1 they’d choose a “woman” if one were available. If you get my drift.

The issue you have is Labour consistently chooses not select a female leader. It’s interesting that it’s the Tories who have chosen four female leaders, plus two minority ethnic leaders. Labour - the party of equality - is very male and pale in comparison.

Wouldn't it be an improvement to have a left wing woman running the country

Why a woman?

So far I've not been overly impressed by any of the previous female incumbents. Sex doesn't seem to be a contributing factor one way or the other.

Agree this would be great OP. Looking at it in context though- the probability is still very stacked against women becoming leaders.

Labour definitely has a woman problem, as do the other main parties, I would say, though. The UK is still a very sexist country.

It’s well known that women politicians (or any woman in the public eye) will get ripped apart on social media in ways that men in the same roles in public eye don’t do. Women in general in the population already get physical, sexual and online abuse at about double the rate men do. And that’s only what is reported..

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/experiencesofharassmentinenglandandwales/december2023

69% of women in this survey had experienced sexual harassment, domestic abuse, violence, stalking or other offences, in some form- actual legal offences- and many didn’t trust the police to do anything, so underreporting is rife. Men can offend very freely if there’s little effective punishment or deterrent to do so. Women don’t have a level playing field to aspire to leadership in this context.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/jun/30/most-women-in-england-and-wales-have-seen-abusive-male-behaviour-in-the-past-year-poll-finds

So women get much harder time than men when they do take a leadership role and as we know politics is exceptionally brutal for that. And there are often women who are successful but there’s a glass ceiling stopping them get to the very top, which can be to do with all sorts of factors including how family unfriendly UK working culture often is, which affects women and men negatively.

Top British companies are only just getting to have women occupying over 43% of roles on company boards:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-businesses-lead-the-way-with-record-numbers-of-female-leaders

That’s slow but positive progress, and it’s hopeful for the future, but in actual leadership:

• CEO: 19 women lead FTSE 350 companies, just 7% of all FTSE 350 CEOs.
• Chair: There are 60 women in Chair roles across the FTSE 350, just 17% of the total.

So it seems obvious that the climate is systemically against women getting into leadership roles.

I wasn’t around for the lead up to Thatcher but in recent times, a Tory woman has only taken over as leader at times of extreme abysmal Tory chaos, when none of the men wanted to risk their own career track to touch the abject shitshow they’d wreaked on the country. These women are in general appointed to be expendable. Sort things out and then let a man take over, when things are more normal and electable. Pretty sure that’s how Kemi Badenoch has been able to survive as party leader this long..

Theresa May took over when the country was horrifically divided and David Cameron had shamefully just fucked us over with pushing for a non binding Brexit referendum and then run away.

Liz Truss took over when Borris Johnson’s corruption and incompetence had led to multiple scandals and mass government resignations go try to get him out, Partygate had showed his massive hypocrisy, the country was in post Covid economic chaos with an ongoing energy prices shock, while Putin had been illegally waging war on Ukraine causing global instability.

So yes I agree that Labour should have a female leader, but I won’t hold my breath for that happening any time soon. Also it will be a wider field than your current picks, if we’re looking at the medium-term time scale for a female Labour leader. For example, Yvette Cooper is experienced, shows probity, I can see her as a party leader. I don’t think Kier Starmer is going anywhere soon.

Every Labour PM has been poor, the current one the worst.

Other countries have had a left wing President or PM who was a woman and it worked out well. We need that to get this country moving forwards again

Could it be nothing to do with the sex of the person and just that they’re better than what we’ve got?

I can't see starmer or Reeve's lasting post may local
Elections. Writings already on the wall and the stories are appearing.

Same old political back stabbing. Old as julius Caesar

Perhaps we could chose the most competent person, regardless of their sex?

You’d prefer the country was governed by a woman, just because she’s a woman, rather than the best candidate for the job?

Unbelievable.

Given the list of MPs you’ve given this reads like a joke. Isn’t it?

Haigh, Siddiq and Rayner have been sacked for misconduct or fraud.
Leadbetter is trying to kill people. Butler thinks babies aren’t born with a sex. Dodds doesn’t know what a woman is.

Most of the women on your list pretend men can be women so no thanks. I want a competent leader who will stand up for women's rights, don't care if they are male or female or left or right.

Can you give me some examples? Genuinely. The decline in losers consent is not exactly disputed in UK politics following Brexit, in fact look at European politics generally, France esp, to see the collapse of the centre. Polarisation driven by social media is so clear to anyone with eyes that I can't believe I'm even writing this post. Our times are not like previous times, technology has fundamentally changed things, globalisation, nature of warfare etc etc. You could possibly argue that our brief spell of peace that the temporary triumph of liberalism have given us was an anomaly and we're back to the war of all against all we've seen through the ages, but I suspect you're not, and I'd also argue that for a thousand years Britain has been an anomaly, we don't have a codified constitution because we were stable enough not to need one, we are, compared to almost all of the rest of the world, unusually old and settled. I can't see that continuing under current conditions. I'm keen to hear your arguments to the contrary but it sounds to me like you're either a bit naive or high on copium

Starmer has been about as much use as a chocolate teapot.

Streeting and Burnham are the favourites to replace him. They'd be just as useless.

Get a competent left wing woman in, that's what I am saying.

New Zealand. Scotland. Iceland. All had left wing women as leaders and all did very well. Progressive countries that are welcoming to refugees and have good healthcare

I can’t make it sound as it does on satirical radio but Dianne Abbot?!?!🤣

You must be pretty young to make such a ridiculous claim.

I've voted in General Elections for nearly 50 years. Nothing has changed re consensus. There never has been "a general will". Even landslide election victories were never a consensus.

🤣😱

I don't know what that's in response to, I'm not saying we can't have a female leader. I am saying the UK is ungovernable (whatever sex is at helm)

Liz Truss is a giant compared to all the ninnies named in OP's lead.