Corbyn rewrites the rules to claim gender balance in Shadow Cabinet

After being criticised for not involving enough women in his shadow cabinet, Jeremy Corbyn has brought more women in by creating cabinet roles. He has promoted ‘young people and voter registration’ to a Cabinet role and given the job to Gloria de Piero, who will be terrific at it given her interest in non-voters and political apathy, but who may be surprised by the whooshing promotion that the role has received. Similarly, Luciana Berger is Shadow Minister for Mental Health, which is now a Cabinet position too. Perhaps it’s a good thing that mental health, so overlooked and underfunded, is a Cabinet role – though it’s not arepa rate department to health. But the fact remains that Corbyn has not promoted women to the great offices of state. On gender equality, he is being beaten by David ‘calm down, dear’ Cameron (who people always seem to forget has presided over a massive increase in the number of female Tory MPs), as the Tory Home Secretary is a woman, while all Labour’s top jobs are held by men. The Corbyn team response to this is that ‘the so-called “great offices of state” as defined in the 19th century reflect an era before women or workers even had the vote, and before Labour had radically changed the state’. Chances are we’ll see a lot more of this ‘we’re redefining the rules’, especially when the rules happen to inconveniently give the impression you’re not sticking to verbal commitments about promoting women. Shadow Cabinet appointments so far:

Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party

Jeremy Corbyn MP

Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, Party Chair and Shadow Minister for the Cabinet Office

Tom Watson MP

Shadow First Secretary of State, Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills

Angela Eagle MP

Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer

John McDonnell MP

Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury

Seema Malhotra MP

Shadow Home Secretary

Andy Burnham MP