The other night on BBC Question Time, David Starkey suggested I was a ‘token woman’ as home secretary as a way of suggesting that more women weren’t necessary in politics. As in so many other things, he was wrong about that – I’m proud of the whole of my 10-year ministerial career. However, here’s a thought: Imagine if there were as many ‘average’ women at the top of British politics – or even TV punditry, David –  as there were men. Then we really would be making progress towards equality. There’s a long way to go though and, even as we celebrate Labour success, we must not take our foot off the accelerator.

Ed Miliband’s clever use of PMQs to highlight a completely male government front bench gave a strong picture of Tory and Lib Dem failure to make much progress in getting women into parliament and government last week.  And over the weekend, the Guardian recognised our current record of selections.

So far, for 2015 we’ve selected women in more than half of our target seats. Of that 57, 51 were selected on all-women shortlists. Our lists for the Euro elections are 50:50 male and female.

This is the good news but it hasn’t happened by accident or over night. Historically Labour has been the party with the best representation of women and with the greatest internal pressure to ensure a better gender balance amongst candidates. Despite this, in 1945, 21 Labour women were elected. In 1987, 21 Labour women were elected. In 1992, all constituencies were required to have a woman on the shortlist – 36 Labour women were elected. Between 1992 and 1997, a campaign led by Labour women ensured that there were AWS in half of all potentially winnable seats. In 1997, 101 Labour women were elected.

Some then felt that the job was done. 2001 demonstrated that there is not yet a momentum towards a more equal parliament. After a successful industrial tribunal challenge to AWS, it was not used for the 2001 election. Only four new Labour women were elected (and over 30 new men) and byelection candidates replacing women were all men. Labour then legislated to allow positive action and reintroduced AWS for 2005.

However, despite the great progress in our target seats, the numbers of incumbents mean that we will almost certainly still be standing a majority of male candidates in 2010. This is why at the current rate of progress a child born today would be drawing her pension before there was equal representation in parliament.

Of course this is also because no other party has taken the issue of equal representation as seriously as us. This week, Caroline Spelman suggested the Tories should introduce all-women shortlists. However she’s an isolated voice and that’s why the Tories have selected women in fewer than a third of seats.

We believe in equal representation in parliament because a diverse team makes better decisions, reaches more people and campaigns more strongly. This is why we also need to look to better representation in our senior officials. It is worrying that there are currently no women as regional directors. The general election campaign team was announced as all male at the time of the last reshuffle, although I understand that senior women MPs have carved out important roles.

The key point is that while we should celebrate the strength and diversity of our European and general election candidates, the job’s not yet done. If you want to be part of it, why not join Labour Women’s Network and support our work training future candidates and campaigning to keep equal representation at the heart of our party’s structures and policies. Men very welcome – we all win with a stronger team!

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Jacqui Smith is a former home secretary, writes the Monday Politics column for Progress, and tweets @smithjj62

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Photo: gaspi *yg