Helen
Grant MP, replaces Lynne Featherstone at equalities minister to become joint Parliamentary Under Secretary of
State at Ministry of Justice and for Women's and Equality issues. Helen Grant was one of Cameron’s A-listers which was
specially designed to stop men from becoming MP’s. She has benefitted from sexism
against men so no hope of equality from her.
On
the Justice front, at least Ken Clarke recognised the need for reform on shared
parenting and that even admitted that many mothers break contacts orders and
get away with it. Chris Grayling his successor is a robust politician so we can
hope he will drive things through on shared parenting and hopefully take a
tougher stand on family courts.
Tim
Loughton going as children's minister is a blow as he has been someone who has
kept the flame alight on shared parenting. Let's hope his continues to do so on
the backbenches.
In
terms of health, I cannot see Jeremy Hunt being any more bothered about men's
health than his predecessors. He seems the archetypical politician/corporate
type who has no view on anything so it’s likely he just simply won't be
interested.
Gove
remain in place on education which means no reversal of the plans to do away
with GCSE's and he at least wants rigour and discipline in schools which boys
need.
The
one additional issue is the continual pantomime about how many women and how
many men are in the cabinet and have ministerial position. Of course, to anyone
who believes in equality, the gender of those in government is irrelevant. But
to those in the partisan/radical feminist camp like the Fawcett Society, BBC,
Guardian and Equalities and Human Rights Commission - gender is more important
than ability.
So
the number of men and women in the new ministerial team will be picked apart and
will do so I am sure over the next week. The Fawcett Society are on the case already.
Because of the political attention on the issue, it pressurises
Cameron/Clegg (and Blair and Brown before them but that's their fault for
encouraging it) to keep the numbers of women up. Cabinet is one thing and the number has been reduced to 4 from 5 but what about at the ministerial level. More will come out over the next few days.
We know there is someone into the Cabinet Office collating the information will be
totting up the number of men and women. If the number of women are not high
enough to satisfy the covert quota (the quota is at least the same as
before with some upward ratchet – Cameron himself has declared hir goal to have women in one third of government postst by the end of this parliament) some women will be pushed up because they
are women and some men pushed down or out all together because they are men. We
know this is the likely answer. Even the Conservatives themselves see it.
It
does not matter if Cameron/Clegg say there is no quota, there is one subliminally
and the coming day or so will see what the shift is. We know The Guardian is
watching with McCarthyite intent, and if the numbers are down overall it will be down to evil men not based on the available talent.
It
is just like those in the 30 per cent club or Women on Boards who debated with Mike
Buchanan on Radio 4 who say they do not want a quota. That is an untruth. Not
only is the 30 per cent club named after a quota, whenever, there is not an
increase of women in FTSE roles they scream blue murder, therefore an unofficially
sublimely quota comes into existence.Covert pressure in terms of "if we don't put more women on the board, we'll be attacked for it, no matter whether or not we have suitable people or not."
Overall the cabinet reshuffle does nothing for men - many of us knew it would be the case so we'll carry on with our campaigning - its too important to stop.
Posted by Skimmington
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