David Cameron’s misogynistic reshuffle

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[/audioplayer]Ask anyone who really knows David Cameron and they will tell you he likes a certain kind of woman. He has a very specific type, the Prime Minister. It is almost spooky the way all his women conform to it.

They are all attractive, accomplished, articulate and well-dressed. But there is something else that makes certain women irresistible to Mr Cameron. While giving the appearance of being feisty and uncompromising, his sort of woman usually seems to know when to fall into line.

I am not speaking of romantic conquests, but of the type of woman the Prime Minister likes to promote. Mr Cameron has an eye, like Tony Blair before him, for a good physical specimen — perfectly blow-dried, impeccably styled. But he most appreciates the kind of girl who doesn’t have too strong an urge to get something particular accomplished. She must not be too wedded to a specific area of expertise, experience or knowledge.

This is because it is extremely important that a female minister be ready to drop everything at any given moment and go to wherever the Prime Minister needs her to go on the cabinet re-shuffle chessboard. She should ideally be able to conveniently forget, for example, that for years she has been an expert in education. She should be prepared to dust off her Hunter wellies and pretend to have an instinctive feel for farming as the PM packs her off to Defra.

She will be expected to go at any time to any place, any department in Whitehall. Regardless of where her talents ought to be sending her, she is headed for a department that is considered too male, too pale, too stale.