Bernard Ingham: We don’t need quotas, we need the best to govern us

You never know how someone is going to perform until they have the job. Responsibility does curious things to people. Just think of Margaret Thatcher and the man bred for No 10, Anthony Eden.

It also takes time. Since the recess yawns ahead to the autumn, there is at best six months of Parliamentary time before the election for new Ministers to shine as the coalition steadily fragments around them.

Cameron could reasonably claim success for his political refurbishment – however his individual promotions perform – if he wins the next election. It is anything but a foregone conclusion.

And he has not commended himself by his vacant claim that his new government “reflects modern Britain” just because he has five women and the son of a Pakistani bus driver in his cabinet.

This has prompted the mischievous 
to analyse it for horny-handed sons of toil, the landed gentry, Oxford’s Bullingdon Club, professional politicos who have never done a decent job since leaving school, the male/female and North/South splits, homosexuals and certifiable idiots.

It is no more than Cameron deserves. It is impossible and entirely undesirable to have a cabinet or government that reflects modern Britain.

To start with, we can forget children, even if Alex Salmond, in his desperation to secure Scottish independence, has given 16-year-olds the vote.

There is no need for half of them to be women – or men for that matter. And do we need representatives of the labouring classes when what modern Britain cries out for is scientific and technological expertise?

Then, if you take Cameron’s claim at face value, what about the representation of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland? Scotland is a bit difficult because it has only one Tory MP – and he is a junior Minister. Scotland has a Lib Dem Secretary of State.

Wales has brought the first (Tory) beard to the nation’s top table since 1905, so Cameron has made progress there. The hirsute must be pleased.

But there are some elements in Northern Ireland that no one would want in a responsible British government, though the Unionists could help the Tories out in a tight situation.

All of which raises the question why the Scots with a population of 5,295,000 are creating such a fuss. Yorkshire (population 5,234,710) is positively self-effacing.

No one that I know of has yet argued that no self-respecting cabinet or government should be without a Tyke.

Instead, Yorkshire demonstrates exactly why Cameron’s task next May is formidable to say the least. It exposes the unfairness of the current electoral system, which Clegg has preserved out of pique.

While Yorkshire has 44 MPs Scotland has 59. Worse still, Wales, with a population of a mere three million people, has 40 MPs. Need I say more?

So what kind of cabinet and government does Britain need?

Ideally, both should be made up of the sharpest minds in the governing party, people with experience of life, energy, gumption, good judgment and basic loyalty and, not least, the ability 
to communicate easily with ordinary 
folk.

It may seem a lot to ask in one person, but if those criteria had been followed over the years – and not least during the Thatcher governments I knew well – there would have been a lot less bother and angst.

The very idea that the government should mirror the nation as it exists is ridiculous. It leads to tokenism which in turn demeans those chosen because people suspect they have not been selected on merit.

When I worked for Barbara Castle and Margaret Thatcher neither had a moment’s time for women-only selection lists. Women, they said, had to win their spurs.

Of course, a Prime Minister has to manage his party – each of which is a curious coalition of views and prejudices – and ensure that he can govern for the good of the nation. But he should not promote someone solely because he or she meets some quota or other. That is a slippery slope and Cameron should get off it fast.

Incidentally, for all the cabinet “reflecting modern Britain”, Sajid Javid, the Culture Secretary, looks pretty isolated there. After all, there are now well over six million ethnic minorities, principally Asian, black and Chinese, representing 12.8 per cent of the population.

Let’s stop being politically correct and start being politically effective.