When Tony Blair famously posed for the cameras alongside his female Cabinet ministers, he highlighted the prominence of women in the political arena.

Yet, with only days to go to the General Election, it seems that the business of running the country has once again been deemed a man's game.

Bradford's three core constituencies feature not a single female nomination, while the whole area only boast a handful.

Research conducted by the gender equality pressure group the Fawcett Society has revealed that less than 20 per cent of candidates selected by the time nominations closed last week are women.

Although there are nine female parliamentary candidates scattered around Batley and Spen, Calder Valley, Halifax, Keighley, Shipley, Skipton and Ripon, there is a distinct lack of female representation in Bradford South, North and West.

This is in contrast to the 1997 General Election when there were two female candidates in Bradford South and one in Bradford West.

All parties have maintained that there is no deliberate shunning of woman candidates. In its manifesto, Labour has pledged to allow positive discrimination in favour of women when selecting candidates in future elections. By the time nominations closed at the end of last Tuesday, Labour had fielded 149 women in the 641 seats nationally, while the Lib Dems offered 132, and just 94 women emerged from the Tory camp.

But Jeannette Sunderland, leader of the Liberal Democrats on Bradford Council, said there was plenty of female clout in the city.

"Women are very much key players in Bradford, in fact women on the political scene in Bradford have a greater role than men."

Coun Ian Greenwood, leader of the Labour group on Bradford Council, said they wanted to get more women involved, but they already have five sitting MPs (one of which is Keighley's candidate Ann Cryer) and didn't feel it necessary to re-select.

Coun Margaret Eaton, the first female leader of the Conservatives on Bradford Council, said the lack of women entering politics was also reflected in local government candidates over the last few years.