Tom Richmond: Token gestures have left David Cameron caught in gender trap

Female cabinet members – Home Secretary Theresa May being the only exception – have been increasingly marginalised while Cameron lost his composure at PMQs when he told a Labour front bencher to “calm down dear”. Now, as Cameron contemplates a summer reshuffle in yet another attempt to energise his faltering top team, familiar faces are said to be in the firing line and they all have one thing in common – they are all female.

Various reports attributed to Whitehall sources – political shorthand for 10 Downing Street – have suggested that the PM is particularly unhappy with the performances of Justine Greening, Theresa Villiers, Maria Miller and Sayeeda Warsi.

If they all fell by the wayside, it could, potentially, leave Theresa May as the last woman standing – especially as there is a dearth of middle-ranking ministers (of either sex) waiting to be promoted into the Cabinet. Yet there is only one person to blame for this mess and it is the Prime Minister himself. He made the appointments in the first place and he should accept responsibility for his judgment.

Take Rotherham-born Greening. She was an unlikely Transport Secretary, given her opposition – as a constituency MP in the London subrubs – to the expansion of Heathrow Airport. That said, she was winning the argument for more rail investment in the North before she was forced to accept the international development brief – a job that she did not want – last October. Her continuing unhappiness at having to increase aid spending, against her wishes, is plain to see.

Ditto Villiers who was Greening’s number two at the Department for Transport. Rather than continuing with her rail reforms, she did receive promotion to the Cabinet as Northern Ireland Secretary as Cameron looked to compensate for the loss of Caroline Spelman and Cheryl Gillan last autumn. Yet she has struggled to command the confidence of Stormont politicians in a role that requires extraordinary diplomacy.

Then there’s Maria Miller, a relative unknown who was promoted in the last reshuffle. As Culture Secretary, she’s drawn criticism for her handling of media reform laws, same-sex marriage and her inability to regulate those internet providers that transmit child pornography. Enough said.

And finally Sayeeda Warsi, the Dewsbury peer who was Tory chairman before compensated with the role of senior minister of state at the Foreign Office and Minister for Faith at the Department for Communities and Local Government. No wonder there’s much head-scratching over her role.

However the issue is this. This quartet are more than capable of making a difference – but they find themselves in jobs unsuited for their abilities because of David Cameron’s desire to put tokenism first and then consider the consequences later. It’s a situation that will only change when he learns to appoint people on merit – and then give them sufficient time to shine.

CONTINUING the reshuffle theme, David Cameron should be looking at reducing the number of ministers in order to improve the efficiency of the Government and to save a few bob.

The one exception is the NHS. Given confirmation that the UK now has 6.5 million careers, and that this number is growing by 6,000 a day, the time has surely come for a Minister to be appointed with sole responsibility for carers – and ensuring the elderly and dying can be assured a greater degree of dignity in their final days.

After all, the NHS workforce of 1.4 million pales into insignificance when compared to the number of people who are working themselves into the ground to support loved ones.

LABOUR’S growing opposition to Michael Gove’s school exam reforms contrasts with the conciliatory advice offered by two of the party’s grandees in this region. Barry Sheerman, who chaired Parliament’s education select committee for 10 years, advised Gove to “carry parents, students, teachers and the broader community with you”.

For once, the top Tory was in listening mode: “Those are very generous words from an experienced politician that I shall take to heart.” Ditto when David Blunkett, Education Secretary from 1997-2001, pointed out that the old O-Levels – and he obtained his English qualification at night school – favoured those with a good memory.

Gove did not disagree, noting the Yorkshireman is “far more often right than wrong”.

If only there was more political co-operation like this.

WHEN Ministers bowed to public pressure to give local residents a greater say over the location of unsightly wind turbines, nine Conservative MPs from this region stood up in the House of Commons and welcomed this apparent u-turn. If only it was this straight-forward.

Minutes before their fulsome 
tributes, Labour’s Sheffield South East MP Clive Betts – chairman of Parliament’s communities and 
local government select committee – asked these questions of housing minister Mark Prisk: “Will he confirm that this change does not give a veto 
to local authorities and local communities over all wind farm applications?

“Will he confirm that what he has done is to put into the guidance matters to which the local authorities will now have to have regard in considering applications?”

The response of Prisk was revealing: “The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, which is that the policy has not changed.”

Why all the fuss – or was this self-congratulation simply wishful thinking?

HOW said to read about the 
demons which continue to haunt 
rugby icon Jonny Wilkinson nearly 
10 years after he dropped that goal to bring the World Cup back to these shores.

It’s almost heartbreaking to learn that he can draw little comfort from his achievements on the field because his body sometimes buckled under the weight of public expectation.

The opposite is this: Wilkinson’s 
story shows what it takes to become a world-beater in any sport. Perhaps our over-paid, under-performing footb
allers should take note.

For, while our Jonny made the most of his ability, how many England players can honestly say that they, too, have done so?