LABOUR leader Ed Miliband yesterday boosted his party’s call for all-women shortlists by calling for a 50-50 gender balance in Parliament.

Mr Miliband told Red magazine that while Prime Minister David Cameron had never reached the targets he had himself set, women now made up 40 per cent of the shadow cabinet.

Yet he believes this number is not enough and hopes to get to a half-half distribution of seats in Parliament.

Responding to Mr Miliband’s comments, former Tory MP Edwina Currie told BBC Breakfast that her party believed in choosing the “best person for the job” rather than helping women reach the front benches.

Daily Mail columnist David Lawson went as far as to suggest men will soon be needing to sue for sexual discrimination despite the fact that only one quarter of ministers attending Cabinet meetings is a woman.

The Fawcett Society’s deputy chief executive Dr Eva Neitzert spoke to the Star about the need for government to “look like the country it purports to represent.”

According to the Centre for Women & Democracy this would need the input of all political parties including what the charity calls “positive action measures.”

Dr Neitzert concluded saying that her organisation too welcomed “Ed Miliband’s aspiration to have gender balance among his MPs.”

“[We] call on the other political parties to take proactive measures to ensure that there is gender balance in selections, particularly in marginal and winnable seats,” she added.