EXTRACT FROM BRIDGET JONES DIARY

PAUL WILENIUS:                The first resolution in 
Bridget Jones's diary is about love.  But for some, romance takes a difference 
form. For Jane Griffiths it all began with her election victory four years 
ago.

JANE GRIFFITHS MP:            I shall never forget it. What 
we saw was the Blair's babes photo which has become a kind of icon and 
we will all be in there forever, and we will never be able to lose it, 
it's really quite difficult sometimes.

WILENIUS:                    But that line up of more 
than one-hundred Labour women MPs was only possible because so many had 
been selected from women only shortlists. Jane, visiting a retro fashion 
store in Reading, hoped this would usher in a new age for women in politics. 
Although Labour's policies on childcare, maternity leave and the minimum 
wage have benefited women, with others she's having "negative thoughts" 
about the future.

ACTUALITY:                    Get a bit closer.

WILENIUS:                    But instead of getting 
closer to a target of more than three-hundred women in Parliament, Jane 
fears it's moving further away. Like our eponymous author would say, it's 
very, very, bad.
The fictional Bridget Jones spends much of her time in places like this, 
worrying about the lack of men in her life. But for real life Labour women 
MPs, the big problem is there's are far too many. And with so few women 
selected in safe seats, after the next election, there's no doubt there'll 
be even more men back in Westminster.

OONA KING MP:                I'm desperately worried that 
after the next election there'll be fewer women, I know there will be fewer 
women and I know how shocking it is to me - deeply shocking, when I sit 
in the Chamber sometimes and there are say, forty MP's in that Chamber 
and I'm the only woman sitting there and I sometimes feel like going, hey, 
has anybody noticed, there's thirty-nine men here and one woman, you know, 
where are the women? 

WILENIUS:                    When it comes to politics, 
not everyone will be glad that Parliament, the government and Whitehall 
will still be awash with men.

The high hopes of many women that full equality could have been achieved 
quickly have been swept away, partly by Labour's male dominated trade unions, 
which have continued to influence many selections. 

GLENYS KINNOCK MEP:            I don't think the unions are 
necessarily making a concerted effort to exclude women, but what you do 
see is that very often the people that they will promote will be male members 
of the union because the unions tend to be dominated by, by men, and if 
their interest has been in having that kind of representation, and in many 
ways it's been, you know, if you like, a kind of reward for the contribution 
perhaps, I don't know. 

WILENIUS:                    This means the worst 
fears of women Labour MPs like Jane, here snatching coffee in Reading station 
with her assistant, have now been realised. Women only shortlists were 
first brought in by John Smith, but were banned by the courts before the 
last election. Now Jane feels the only way forward is to change the law 
to bring them back. Many more Labour MPs would back such a move. But there 
are also powerful men in the Labour movement who support such action.

JOHN EDMONDS:                I think the law ought to 
be changed, the law ought to reflect the aspirations of society and the 
aspiration of society I think is to have a House of Commons which about 
reflects the population, about half men and half women.

GWYNETH DUNWOODY MP:        There is a problem with changing the 
law because if you say the law says everybody is equal but, when I say 
you are not equal you are not equal, firstly it is difficult to write a 
law like that and secondly it is difficult to make it stick. There are 
still going to be vacancies and I hope they are all going to be filled 
by bright women. But that is a matter for those who decide to parachute 
in candidates at the last moment.

WILENIUS:                    The arrival of so many 
women MPs like Jane in Parliament was expected to radically change the 
culture of Westminster and Whitehall. They travelled hopefully expecting 
new opportunities, through modernisation and reform of the old system. 
A system which many female MPs feel is male dominated, like a Boy's Club, 
working against women intent on making a political journey.

JANE GRIFFITHS;                I think there's an issue 
for people with families, with young children especially, but I really 
think that modernisation is important really for its own sake, we are a 
twenty-first century government, fifth largest economy in the world, but 
we're operating our parliament still in an eighteenth century kind of way 
and I think that's wrong.

WILENIUS:                    But radical reform of 
the Commons has been effectively derailed. Women MPs have more difficulty 
than most balancing their lives. Even so they've not yet managed to convince 
all of their fellow Labour women that Parliament should be changed to accommodate 
them.

DUNWOODY:                Frankly when I came in here I 
was determined to go in anywhere where I was told women weren't allowed, 
because there were all these unwritten rules, you didn't go in the smoking 
room, you didn't do this, you didn't do that, any women that allows herself 
to be deflected by that is really not capable of doing the job and shouldn't 
be here.

WILENIUS:                    But there are women now 
in the corridors of power who feel it is a great disappointment that modernisation 
has been so slow, and that this has led to some women quitting as MPs and 
is putting others off politics altogether. They believe Westminster is 
lagging behind other Parliaments in Britain and across the world, and the 
attempt to get more women interested in politics is being blocked.

JOAN RUDDOCK MP:            The public believe we are crazy 
to stay here until midnight, night after night, wearing ourselves out and 
frankly not making the best decisions as a consequence.

KING:                        The Modernisation 
Committee came up with proposals and they have succeeded in preventing 
us being here through the night, the quid pro quo, 'cos you've got to remember 
that's all politics ever is, is that our average time now approximately, 
our finishing time, has gone from ten-thirty pm was the average time when 
we finished, to now, it's eleven-thirty pm is the average time, and that 
just sums up the House of Commons in a nutshell, to take a tiny step forward 
it took us three years to come up with a proposal that means on average 
we go home an hour later.

WILENIUS:                    Harriet Harman - sacked. 
 Mo Mowlam - sidelined and quitting. Baroness Jay - moving on. Betty Boothroyd 
- bowing out. 

ACTUALITY

BETTY BOOTHROYD:            Time's up.

WILENIUS:                    The hole left by the 
loss of such high profile Labour women will be hard to fill, so the government's 
under pressure to do more to help women MPs to succeed.

KINNOCK:                    There are certain women 
that have been in parliament, women like Betty Boothroyd and Mo Mowlam 
in particular probably, who people have identified, women have liked because 
they're strong, because they make their mark and they have really you know, 
good extrovert personalities and that's gone down very well.  But there 
are other women, and those other women can build up I think a similar standing. 
 And we do need them to be there. 

WILENIUS:                    If he wins the next election 
in a month's time, Tony Blair will come under pressure to promote more 
women to his Cabinet and government. Many Labour MPs are also ready to 
resist any moves to scrap the Women's Unit, or even abolish the post of 
Women's Minister.

When Jane and Labour arrived in power they set up a Women's Unit to co-ordinate 
the work of all departments to give all women a better deal. But there's 
now speculation that it will be replaced with an Equalities Unit. This 
would be highly controversial. 

KINNOCK:                    I would feel very concerned 
if a decision was taken to abolish a women's unit.  To assume that it isn't 
necessary to have units which focuses entirely on women's issues as they 
are represented through every department of government.  

Having a women's minister has always been very important for us in the 
Labour party, and all those dark days of Thatcherism, we used to dream 
of having a women's minister, and is important and we should not lose sight 
of the fact of having an individual with people working with her, who is 
able to look after women's interests. 

DUNWOODY:                I've always believed that the 
best way to control what goes on in individual departments is to have some 
very bright woman at a very senior level watching everything that goes 
on, not just the things that are referred to the women's unit. And I don't 
believe it is a good idea to have a central unit charged with just one 
very narrow responsibility.

WILENIUS:                    This is about as romantic 
as it gets. Dinner in the new Portcullis House Parliament building. Jane 
and her husband Andrew, hope Labour's love affair with the voters will 
survive through the delivery of popular policies. Women were decisive in 
giving Tony Blair and Jane victory in nineteen-ninety-seven.

ACTUALITY:                    Bleep....

WILENIUS:                    But polling evidence 
shows that women are more likely to be dissatisfied with the government's 
performance than men. 

JESSICA ELLGOOD:            Amongst men, the balance of opinion 
is minus seven, ie minus seven points they're more likely to be dissatisfied 
with the government's performance, among women it drops to minus twenty-one, 
it's the real difference in how the different sexes perceive the government's 
record. 

EDMONDS:                    Frankly the long term 
political dangers are for any party that looks as if its representatives 
are very different from the population at large.  Now at the moment Labour 
has got less of that problem than the Tories, but Labour ought to do better. 
 I mean it's Labour which is the reforming party, it's Labour which is 
trying to push forward the barriers, push them out of the way to women, 
so Labour has got a real leadership role here.  

GRIFFITHS:                    The hours are quite 
ridiculous, I cannot see why we should have to be voting on really important 
matters at ten, eleven, twelve o'clock, later, into the small hours sometimes. 
 

WILENIUS:                    Another late night for 
Jane, but it's not a calorie and Chardonnay fest, as seen in Bridget Jones 
diary. It's just being there at all hours and voting through the government's 
policies, which she also believes must be sensitive to the needs of women.

RUDDOCK:                    If the government doesn't 
continue to deliver for women then I think of course ultimately we'll pay 
the political price, because women will not vote for a government that 
they do not see representing their interests, we've done so so far, but 
we need to keep doing it.

KINNOCK:                    It is women who all the 
polling consistently shows that it's women, it's often young women as a 
recent poll showed, who are disaffected, who do feel that politicians are 
not speaking to them, who are not interested in their particular problems, 
or their particular sensitivities or interests.  

WILENIUS:                    The big question over 
the next month, is do the women voters still fancy Tony Blair enough to 
give him another term in office. But for Jane and other women Labour MPs 
there's more, they won't ever really be able to relax until they're sure 
the long term political battle for women's equality in Parliament, is finally 
won and a lot more men are shown the door.