Generally speaking, Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) elicits no emotion so much as an embarrassed, eye-rolling weariness. The weekly session in the House of Commons – designed to allow MPs to ask questions of the PM – often devolves into the kind of playground politics that many of us find deeply grating, with politicians banging the benches, jeering and yelling at their parliamentary opponents.

But at this week’s PMQs, the British public was treated to a rare display of cross-party unity. Yes, Jeremy Corbyn attacked Theresa May for policing cuts, while May slammed deputy Labour leader John McDonnell over comments he once made about Tory minister Esther McVey. But along the front benches, each politician had one thing in common: every one of them wore a 50:50 pin.

The pins are produced by campaign group 50:50 Parliament, which is pushing for equal gender representation in UK politics. In the week that the UK celebrated 100 years of partial women’s suffrage, front-bench Conservative and Labour politicians wore the badges to show their support for the campaign. (Prime Minister Theresa May wore a ribbon in 50:50 Parliament’s campaign colours of white, purple and green - the same colours used by the suffragettes.)

Currently, just 32% of MPs in the UK are women, and there are still more men in the Commons than there have ever been women MPs. A key pillar of 50:50 Parliament’s campaign is the #AskHerToStand initiative, which asks people to nominate a woman they think would make a good MP and encourage her to run for election.

Why every front-bench politician wore a 50:50 pin at this week’s PMQs