Big Boys’ Club was clueless, but it’s not surprising with no women to guide them
There is a photograph, taken during the pandemic, of the inner circle at No 10. The Prime Minister appears grave and anxious. Beside him are his right-hand men, the consigliere Dominic Cummings (in his trademark fleece) and Lee Cain, the director of communications, who looks like one of Eastenders’ bulletheaded Mitchell brothers. In the middle, dominating the room, stands Prof Chris Whitty, the Chief Medical Officer, who is flushed and gesturing furiously at a sheet of statistics.
Behind Prof Whitty is Health Secretary Matt Hancock, arms crossed and shell shocked as though he just saw the ghost of his own career.
My first thought on seeing the photo was: they’re not social distancing! The draconian rules that select group imposed on the British people clearly didn’t apply to them. It explains maybe why most of them got Covid-19.
Secondly, there isn’t a single female in the room. That isn’t just a question of token gender diversity. It really, really mattered during the past eight months when edicts handed down by the Big Boys provoked mums around the country to shout at the TV.
“You must go to work if you can,” declared Boris. And the women of Britain bellowed back, “But the schools are still closed, you fool! How are we supposed to go to work?” Has Boris ever had to sort childcare for his multiple offspring? Silly question.
Women not only deserved a representative at the top table; a female perspective was downright essential to save the men from making idiots of themselves, which they did with embarrassing frequency.
It is mainly women who witnessed, first hand, the devastating effect of the virus policies on real people. Women who shouldered the burden of caring. Women who corralled reluctant kids around the kitchen table for home schooling. To mums fell the task of comforting dejected teenagers who had their exams and other milestones
stolen from them. It was mums who hit the phones after the A-level debacle to find a university place for tearful sons and daughters. (Mums I know confidently predicted back in March that grading exams using an algorithm based on previous years’ performance would cause chaos and unfairness.)
It was good old Mum who spent hours talking students off the metaphorical ledge when her offspring arrived to find uni was about as much fun as a Covid-safe Colditz. And it is warrior daughters who formed pressure groups to relieve the devastating isolation of elderly men and women in care homes.
When Prof Whitty and his Sage scientists told the Big Boys’ Club that people could see only one person outside their household, would a woman have laughed and pointed out that no one visiting their parents would agree to see mum but not dad? Would a woman have told the guys that bolting playground gates during lockdown while allowing golf clubs to stay open was not a good look? Would a woman planning a family Christmas, have argued strongly against the nutty rule of six? You bet she would. The chaps didn’t have a clue.
I have only met Dominic Cummings and Lee Cain once, at a meeting where I was the sole female present. Cain
seemed like a toff ’s idea of a clever working-class person. He struck me as neither especially bright nor overburdened with people skills. Probably cultivating a glowering mystique to hide his inadequacies. Cummings has a laserlike intensity that befits a legendary Svengali, but you wouldn’t trust him to mind a dachshund while you popped to the shop. Their combined emotional intelligence would struggle to make it into double figures. (This explains why, instead of apologising for his trip to Barnard Castle, Cummings delivered a dissertation on Why What I Did Wrong was Within the Rules. Public trust in the Government has never recovered.)
Undoubtedly, such types have a key part to play in a tunnel-visioned team with one eye on goal, but what they lack is the common sense and broader human sympathy this national crisis also demands. The collateral damage caused by the second lockdown could well end up destroying the Prime Minister they helped to create. As they prepare to depart, rumours that their central role in Boris’s life will be taken by “softer” women are already causing consternation. “What, seriously? Allow a bunch of silly girls to sneak into the photo of the Big Boys’ Club?”
Let’s face it, they could hardly do worse.