Cabinet reshuffle: a good day for Maria Miller but a bad day for women
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Version 0 of 1. Imagine the scene. The female policy adviser brought in to advise David Cameron on his "problem with women" tells him what they want from his first reshuffle: "Get rid of a couple of the most senior women for a start," she says, "then promote one woman to cover all those pesky media and sports problems as well as women and equalities. Oh, and make sure she is opposed to abortions and gay marriage while you're there. That should do the trick." Sadly, this isn't a scene from the new series of The Thick of It but, judging by the government reshuffle, probable advice. The leaked internal note that led to the appointment of a special adviser on women in the first place suggested that both personnel and policies were an issue when it came to the declining support for Cameron among women. Too much policy was being presented by white men in suits and the policies themselves were hurting women, particularly poor ones. But with his first major shuffle Cameron has failed both to improve the number of women in government and to offer support for the policies that matter to many of them. First of all, he has got rid of two of five of his female cabinet ministers – Caroline Spelman and Cheryl Gillan – and made Baroness Warsi (female, Asian and, my God, working class) even more the Tory token that she is by keeping her in the cabinet but without a proper job. In contrast, just one of the 19 men were shown the door, Sir George Young. Policy is always going to be more important than personnel, but to end the day with fewer women than the handful he started out with seems a tad careless. Some of those close to No 10 suggest that the next round of junior job announcement expected later today will favour more women, even those brought in as part of Cameron's controversial A-lists of 2010. Even so, it's hard to see how his first reshuffle takes Cameron any closer to fulfilling his pre-election pledge to appoint a third of his first government's jobs to women. Prior to today's changes just one in six ministers were women (21 of 121, including whips). There is of course the appointment of Maria Miller as both culture secretary and minister in charge of women and equalities. (She has previously been the disability minister, a job obviously so well handled by this party loyalist that the chancellor of the exchequer was booed at the Paralympics.) Admittedly, the government equalities office has been a bit of an orphan since birth, going to the ministers (Harriet Harman under Labour then Theresa May as the coalition's first home secretary) who most wanted to foster it. Yet such a surprise was it that it was being moved to the department for culture, media and sports that no one at the Home Office seemed to know what was happening a few hours after the news was announced. So, has Miller shown a keen interest in equalities to date? Cameron and his advisers must have looked at its own party website and seen that this "mother of three ... brings her experience as a working mother and in business to all aspects of her political work". She has also worked in the education department and was shadow minister for the family. She also voted for the proposal to stop abortion providers counselling women with unwanted pregnancies proposed by Nadine Dorries's amendment to the health and social care bill last year, and in 2008 this MP for Basingstoke voted for the abortion time limit to be lowered to 20 weeks against current scientific and medical consensus. She has also voted against gay marriage. As Chris Grayling was appointed justice secretary and Jeremy Hunt put in charge of health, @thefworduk, the Twitter account of the FWord feminist website, tweeted: "a homophobe in charge of justice, an anti-choice in charge of health...#keepshuffling". Cameron was advised in opposition to reach beyond the Tory party's "core" vote towards more women, minorities, even more non-southern rich people. Ceri Goddard, chief executive of the Fawcett Society, had hoped the reshuffle was a "golden opportunity for the prime minister to boost the present and influence of women in British politics". Even with a few newbies appointed later today, that opportunity looks to have been lost. |