How is that “reshuffle for women” going?

UPDATE: Total promotions yesterday – Women: 11, Men: 27

Promotions

Today’s reshuffle was widely briefed by Downing St as being a “reshuffle for women” – and Cameron has spoken candidly in the past about his aims to make a third of his Cabinet women. So how has he done?

Well, the full cabinet has now been confirmed, and by our count there will be 33 people attending Cabinet meetings – of which 8 are women. That’s only 24%: not even a quarter, let alone a third.

For chart lovers, that looks a bit like this:

Women in Cabinet

As Norman Smith from the BBC has pointed out, there were in total 27 women Tory ministers before today – and there are now 29. That’s a grand total of two more women.

27 vs 29

By our last back-of-a-fag-packet count, we make it 11 promotions for women and around 25 for men so far. And we’re still waiting on the whips’ office reshuffle. See update above.

One promotion for a woman was Baroness Stowell, who replaces Lord Hill as Leader of the House of Lords. But that position is being reduced from Cabinet position to “attends Cabinet meetings”. What does that mean? For starters – it comes with a smaller salary.

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