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David Cameron's problem with women

Michael Crick | 12:07 UK time, Wednesday, 12 May 2010

David Cameron has a big problem with women, by which I mean women appointments to his Cabinet, as I have forecast here before.

And the Lib Dems certainly don't help. The Liberal Democrats have fewer women MPs proportionately than any of the big three parties, and none is in line for Cabinet.

The most senior Lib Dem woman is probably Sarah Teather.

Mr Cameron is going to have to disappoint a large chunk of his Shadow Cabinet, and may well end up with just three or four women - Theresa May has been named as Home Secretary.

I would also predict Caroline Spelman and Sayeeda Warsi. Teresa Villiers possibly.

Given how much the world has moved on in the last 20 years, that may be regarded as being as big a setback for the cause of women as John Major's first Cabinet in 1990, which contained no women at all.

Comments

  • Comment number 1.

    ...but it's common knowledge in academic circles that women are not as bright as men (intellectually wise that is)...

    ‘Sorry, men ARE more brainy than women. It's a simple scientific fact, says one of Britain's top dons’

  • Comment number 2.

    'CRADLES OF EMINENCE'

    You might be closer to the truth than you think Michael. What do we know of Dave's early years?

  • Comment number 3.

    THERESA MAY! (Dave DOES have a problem.)

    In charge of WOMEN EQUALITY CRIME.

    Only WOE-MEN can stomach Westminster, women are VERY different (I find them much more to my liking). WOE-MEN tend to look down on women.
    MEN and WOMEN will never be equal, it is not what Nature would do. But no WOE-MAN wants to know the truth of it.
    ANOTHER Home Secretary, with NOT A JOT OF VISCERAL UNDERSTANDING of why blokes do what they do.

    Woe unto all men.

    Well done Dave.

  • Comment number 4.

    Sarah Teather? For goodness, spare us. She just grates and grates - and grates.

    And after the performance of Blair's babes can anyone blame DC for being cautious about promoting women to the Cabinet? Think Smith, Flint, Harman and Cooper and ask if you really want another dose of people like that?

    PS And before anyone accuses me of being chauvinistic, I am merely commenting on representatives of my own sex.

  • Comment number 5.

    did a woman discover steam to power trains, how to make a plane fly, how to split the atom, how to discover penecillin, the telephone, a television, radio, how to reproduce sound, making the internal combustion etc etc etc.....not that I am biased...I just read it somewhere....

  • Comment number 6.

    OF BEDS (#5)

    As the Oyster yields a pearl
    man invents.
    Neither realises their fecundity
    is rooted in irritation:
    of one - the body
    of the other - the mind.
    Man kills the oyster
    for its pearl.
    And kills his own World
    for that eureka moment of invention

    Perhaps the ladies are wise enough to see no point in it?

  • Comment number 7.

    But the Labour government had a much bigger problem with woman ministers in that they were all useless !

    Looking forward to an anti-Labour post one day, Michael !

  • Comment number 8.

    I think the reasons for Cameron not liking women in the big seats is self explanatory after watching the footage from the garden at number 10.

    Those boys sure do like one another.

    I saw more human qualities in that pair in 20 minutes than I've seen in any other Prime Minister in 20 years. I detected a degree of fabrication in the laughter, but they had me believing.

    Should we be scared or scarred?

  • Comment number 9.

    there are women there...most of them are in drag...

  • Comment number 10.

    More knee-jerk hostility to the elected prime minister from a jaded and broken hearted Labour hack. Why not go for the balance required of him by his job description and mention the allegations of sexism made against Brown last year by outgoing female ministers, Blears, Smith etc.

    If Blair and Brown had listened to one woman, Claire Short we would not have invaded Iraq and over half a million people wouldn't have died as a result, and we wouldn't be so hated ans despised as Uncle Sam's poodle by people all over the world. But that in a nutshell was always the problem. Labour stopped listening to anybody that disagreed with them and surrounded themselves with yes men. Now they pay the price.

    So there's enough testosterone to go round on both sides Mr. Crick. What anti-Conservative, anti-coalition nonsense are you going to contrive for us next?

  • Comment number 11.

    All this user's posts have been removed.Why?

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