Cameron’s reshuffle is promoting women, yes – but risks patronising them too

After today’s hiring and firings, the women ratio in the Cabinet rises from 14 per cent to 24 per cent. There is something horribly tokenistic, and faintly misogynistic, about boasting about what percentage of women you have in the Cabinet – as if this is a sign of how ‘progressive’ you are. It’s not clear that the brains of these women have been taken into account. Liz Truss, a committed (and award-winning) education reformer, is miscast as Environment Secretary. Gove’s replaced by Nicky Morgan, who is being introduced as ‘a working mother’ by the BBC as if this was, in itself, qualification for Education Secretary. She is a bright, accomplished minister – must she be reduced to a maternal status?