IT IS quite sobering to note the number of readers who have written in to complain about the all-women shortlist used by Labour to select their candidate for May’s election.

Not one, however, has come up with a different, let alone better, mechanism to improve women’s representation in Parliament.

As Anne McIntosh stands down, readers may wish to reflect the likelihood that the closest Tory woman MP to York after May 2015 is likely to be in the constituency of mid-Derbyshire, nearly 100 miles away.

Even more starkly, there is a real prospect that there will be no women Lib Dem MPs after May.

This throws into stark focus how the lack of female representation blights our democracy. York should be proud that there is a real prospect of electing its first woman MP. And a Socialist one at that.

Richard Bridge, Holgate Road, York.