Blair Babes or Blair's Babes is a term sometimes used to refer to the 101 female

Members of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

(MPs) from the Labour Party elected to the British House of Commons in Labour's landslide general election victory in 1997, after images of the new Prime Minister

Tony Blair Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He previously served as Leader of th ...

with 96 of them on the steps of Church House in

Westminster Westminster is an area of Central London, part of the wider City of Westminster. The area, which extends from the River Thames to Oxford Street, has many visitor attractions and historic landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster, B ...

were widely publicised. The photographs have been called "infamous". The phrase is attributed to the '' Daily Mail''. The term "Blair's Babes" has been criticised as trivialising women in politics, and the group of women MPs to which it referred have been studied as a group.

The record-breaking number of new women MPs

The 1997 general election saw more women elected to the House of Commons than ever – 120, exactly double the 60 elected at the 1992 general election. Aside from the 101 Labour MPs, there were also 13

Conservatives Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...

, three Liberal Democrats, and three from other parties (including Speaker

Betty Boothroyd Betty Boothroyd, Baroness Boothroyd (born 8 October 1929) is a British politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for West Bromwich and West Bromwich West from 1973 to 2000. From 1992 to 2000, she served as Speaker of the House of ...

, previously a Labour politician). However, many of the new female MPs grew disillusioned, and nine either chose not to stand or lost their seats in the 2001 general election. Despite two female MPs winning by-elections between 1997 and 2001, and other women being elected, the total number of female MPs fell to 118 at the 2001 general election. A further 22 stood down or lost their seats at the 2005 general election, although the number of female MPs increased again to a new record of 127.

Perception of Blair's Babes

According to ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...

'', Margaret Moran, MP for Luton South, described the "perception that the 1997 intake of female Labour MPs are all robotic clones" as "complete tosh".Mark Inglefield. "A fair cop", ''The Times'', London, 2 September 2000, p. 22 Moran said that she herself was not a Blair Babe, but a "Blair Witch". The columnist Polly Toynbee condemned the term as a "casual,

misogynist Misogyny () is hatred of, contempt for, or prejudice against women. It is a form of sexism that is used to keep women at a lower social status than men, thus maintaining the societal roles of patriarchy. Misogyny has been widely practiced f ...

tag."

Implications of the term

The sociological implications of the term and the experiences of Labour's women MPs were extensively analysed by Sarah Childs in her 2004 book ''New Labour's Women MPs: Women Representing Women''. It has been identified as a trivialising way to refer to women in politics. Tony Blair's wife Cherie Blair did not like the term. Margaret Moran said it should not be used. The term has also been used within Parliament to stigmatise some women MPs, separating "young attractive" Blair's Babes from "brainy babe . Some of the group believe that the term was harmful to their ability to bring about change, and that it encouraged a focus on their appearance. It has been reported that the ''Daily Mail'' used the term "to challenge Labour's claim that having 101 women MPs would make a difference".

The experiences of Blair's Babes as a group

This group of women MPs has sometimes been used as a way to examine women MPs' experiences in Parliament, as in a '' Guardian'' article by

Rachel Cooke Rachel Cooke (born 1969) is a British journalist and writer. Early life Cooke was born in Sheffield, and is the daughter of a university lecturer. She went to school in Jaffa, Israel, until she was 11, before returning to Sheffield, and atten ...

in 2007. Cooke's interviews of ten of the women found that some of them had experienced bullying, sexism and cliques in Parliament, as well as working hours that conflicted with family life. They have also been the subject of "where are they now?" articles. The journalist Lucy Ward has written of the group, As of the 2019 general election, there are ten Blair Babes left in the House of Commons, out of a total of 219 women MPs.

The record-breaking number of new women MPs

Perception of Blair's Babes

Implications of the term

The experiences of Blair's Babes as a group

List of Blair babes

References

Further reading

See also