Some women had a fantastic election—just not very many

There has been much weeping and wailing about women and the election. Not enough women on screen (true). Not enough women in the Cabinet (certainly true). But bad as this is, it’s not the whole picture. Some women had a terrific election.

Anne Lapping has been one of the best current affairs producers on British television for almost thirty years, since she co-founded Channel 4’s A Week in Politics in 1982. She was the executive producer of the best programme on the election during the entire four weeks, Channel 4's What They Won’t Tell Us. The producer was Sally Brindle. Presented by Jon Snow, this 90-minute programme took the issue of cuts seriously, and asked an all-star cast of top civil servants, economists and politicians how they would tackle the cuts, each from their own point of view. This was superb current affairs television.

Polly Toynbee has had a strange time at the Guardian in recent years, unable to make up her mind whether Brown should stay or go. But while the Guardian came out for the Liberal Democrats, Toynbee argued for Labour all the way. She (and her colleagues Jonathan Freedland and Simon Jenkins) was among the very few to emerge with their reputation enhanced, in what turned out to be a horror show of an election for the press.

Yvette Cooper was one of the few stars of a disastrous Labour campaign. While Labour were hiding their deputy leader, Harriet Harman, and in a campaign where Jacqui Smith lost her seat and many hoped Hazel Blears would lose hers, Cooper emerged as a possible contender for the Labour leadership. Another Labour woman who had a terrific campaign was Margaret Hodge, who took on BNP leader Nick Griffin in Barking, in what promised to be the bear-pit fight of the election. She won with over 54% of the vote, over 15,000 votes ahead of the Conservative runner-up and nearly 20,000 votes clear of Griffin.

The Conservative woman who had the best election was Theresa May. She didn’t need to be hidden from the media like Oliver Letwin, George Osborne and Chris Grayling and ended up with Grayling’s job as home secretary, only the second woman ever to hold this post, the first being Jacqui Smith.

What about onscreen? According to the front page story in today’s Guardian Creative and Media section, women had a terrible time in this election’s TV coverage. It’s true. Some had a nightmare. Kirsty Wark and Kay Burley (see Sack Kay Burley, Watch the BBC on YouTube), in particular. But others were outstanding. Laura Kuenssberg, chief political correspondent for the BBC news channel, was on screen 24/7. Reeta Chakrabarti and Jo Coburn, co-presenting The Daily Politics on BBC2 with Andrew Neil, were almost as ubiquitous. And BBC news presenters Jane Hill, Emily Maitlis, Joanna Gosling, Annita McVeigh and Maxine Mawhinney (among others) never put a foot wrong. Andrew Neil (for ‘the barge of bilge’), Paxman and Dimbleby (for election night) and Adam Boulton (for his ridiculous bust-up with Alastair Campbell) had their bad moments. These women reporters and presenters did not.

And last but not least, Gordon Brown’s adviser Sue, and the woman she brought to him, Gillian Duffy (the “bigoted woman”), between them produced the single most electrifying moment of the four weeks. More importantly, it revealed what was wrong with the Labour campaign. First, that Gordon Brown was not who he tried to present himself as, and that had he canned the rictus smile and been straightforward, all might have been different. Second, that Labour lied about immigration. Had they come clean about it (and the budget deficit) they might have won. And lastly, that Labour had disastrously failed to connect with the white working class, especially in the north and midlands.

Two women revealed that.