More than half of newly vacated seats will be fought on All Women Shortlists

By Alex Smith / @alexsmith1982

New candidates in 24 of 44 seats left vacant by MPs retiring at the next election will be selected from All Women Shortlists. Seats reserved for women candidates include some of the “safest” in the Labour column, such as Houghton & Sunderland South, Lewisham East and Newcastle Central, which all have notional majorities of over 7,000 from the 20005 election.

Other constituencies, such as Durham North West and Ardrie & Shotts are battling against the party imposing AWS on their selection process.

More to follow…