Tories 'full of second-class citizens'

Published on 20/08/2009 22:01

THE Conservative Party will be full of "second-class citizens" selected for their ethnicity or gender, former Tory minister Ann Widdecombe has said, as she slapped down David Cameron's candidate selection policy.

Miss Widdecombe said the Tory leader was generally "fantastic", but "wrong" on his policy of choosing more women and ethnic minority candidates for targeted seats, rather than on merit alone.

"I believe, as a woman, that every woman in parliament should be able to look every man from the Prime Minister downwards in the eye and to think she got there on exactly the same basis that he got there. And if she can't, she's a second-class citizen. We're going to have a Conservative Party full of second-class citizens," she said.

The former Home Office minister said she worried about the lack of experience of the many potential MPs coming to the House of Commons after the next election.

"There's been an attitude in the Conservative Party for some time that grey hair isn't worth anything," Miss Widdecombe said. " It isn't going to have the experience that it ought to be able to call on. Not just in forming a government, but in running a parliament," she said.

Miss Widdecombe also said she was may appear on Strictly Come Dancing as a contestant. after she leaves parliament at the general election. "I resisted Strictly Come Dancing right up to this year when I took the request slightly more seriously; maybe because I'm retiring (from politics]," she said.