One small casualty of the coalition Government is that there are no more women in the new Cabinet than there were before last week's election.
There were four then, and there are four now (Cheryl Gillan, Theresa May, Caroline Spelman and Sayeeda Warsi). At least there is now one who is also from an "ethnic" background. Labour's Margaret Beckett is trying to make something out of this non-issue.
I suspect this non-increase situation has arisen because of the lack of suitable female candidates from the Liberal Democrat side.
From the Conservatives, Theresa Villiers was tipped to be Transport Secretary, but that post has gone to Philip Hammond who was displaced from his (formerly Shadow) position by the appointment of Lib Dem David Laws as Chief Secretary to the Treasury. Also, Justine Greening looked like a distinctly possible Cabinet member pre-coalition.
Personally, I remain unconcerned, because I know that one doesn't have to be the same as someone in order to be able to understand them and represent their views and needs. It's not as if Parliament is aiming to be truly representative in that sense anyway.
Where are the children and youths in the Commons? There are millions of them affected by what the government does. Where are the deaf and blind people? Where are the non-sexual folk (as distinct from all the other types who seem to be so precious to some in politics) such as myself, representing us in the House? I could list other equally obvious examples.
It isn't essential to have MPs to represent every category of citizen, nor are proportions of each category of particular important, though it is better overall to have at least a few of each of the most common types represented than not. It's just not as hugely significant as some make out.
This reflects one of the principle objections that many people made when all women shortlists were first introduced: they won't work.
ReplyDeleteThe key to getting a greater number of women into the cabinet lies in bringing about changes in society to make all roles in life more equally shared out rather than NuLab painting over the rust and social engineering.
I'd like to ask any supporter of Labour's progressive wing, where is the evidence of the improvements that AWS was supposed to encourage? It's had about 15 years in operation, so when are the positive effects going to become apparent, in a hundred years time?
When a policy is so unfair and unpopular, it adds injury to the initial insult when it didn't even work.
Yup, that's a good assessment. Of course, the "best" example of AWS by Labour has been Jack Dromey's selection ;-)
ReplyDeletePersonally, JW, I don't care if they are male, female or something in between - I don't care if they are white, black red, yellow, blue, green or purple - just as long as they are the best person for the job and not part of some illogical and artificial quota system that has absolutely no basis in common sense or reality.
ReplyDeleteMy point precisely, and made very well.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I'm looking forward to our first blue and purple-skinned MPs ;-)