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The East elected six new women MPs in May. All of them are Conservatives.

Before the election the only female Tory MP in the region was Nadine Dorries, who represents Mid Bedfordshire. Now she's got company.

Many of those women feel that they owe their election win in part to a little-known group called , and many of them turned up to the reception held at the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham.

The driving force behind the movement is Anne Jenkin, wife of Bernard Jenkin, the MP for North Essex.

"For years and years I looked over my shoulder and said - 'when are we going to do something about the women'?" Now she has.

She is delighted that the Conservative Party has 49 new women MPs and told the assembled, largely female gathering, that £50,000 was given out to 50 candidates to help boost campaign literature, ideas and fundraising as well as helping with training for public speaking.

Andrea Leadsom MP

She said: "Women are not so used to public speaking as men and they need some encouragement to give them confidence."

She should know. Before becoming an MP she worked in the City as head of corporate governance at Invesco Perpetual and was at Barclays Bank before that.

Oddly, Brookes Newmark, Conservative MP for Braintree, is also a founding member.

I asked him why a man would get involved.

"I thought that it was important because women had no networking events, that men have had for centuries.

"When I came into parliament (in 2005) less than 10% of MPs were women. We aimed for 20% with Women2Win and we have just fallen short of this but we are well on our way."

Maybe the other parties, who elected six men between them in the East, could learn a thing or two.

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