Women account for record one in three candidates

A RECORD number of female candidates stood in the General Election, which was held on the 104th anniversary of the death of the Suffragette Emily Davison.

Nearly one in three – 29 per cent – were women, a total of 965, according to figures compiled by Democracy Club and The Daily Telegraph.

In all, 3,384 candidates from dozens of parties contested 650 seats.

This was a big drop compared with the 3,971 candidates in the 2015 General Election and is 20 per cent lower than the all-time high of 4,133 in 2010.

The fall is thought to be because the smaller parties had less time to prepare for polling day after Theresa May’s repeated denials that she wanted to call an election. Labour fielded the most female candidates out of the major parties at 40.4 per cent while the Green Party was second on 34.8 per cent. Ukip had the most imbalanced gender ratio among the major players with just 13 per cent of its candidates women.

Joan Jones, 101, born before women had the vote, in Hounslow, south-west London