Jobs for the girls

YET more sexism in the City is coming our way. First, the ludicrous excuses given by dinosaur FTSE bosses for failing to hire women to their boards, including ‘my colleagues don’t want a woman’ and women ‘don’t fit comfortably’.

How sad that there are men running companies who even think like this in the recesses of their own mind, let alone actually say it out loud. At least this proves that if all the idiotic males were cleared out, there would be plenty of room for talented women.

The row over the Bank of England appointing the lone male applicant out of a shortlist of five to its Monetary Policy Committee (should that be Male Policy Committee?) is a little more nuanced, however. It’s terrible that the MPC has only one female member. After all, the most powerful central bank in the world, the US Federal Reserve, was until recently run by a woman, Janet Yellen, so there is no excuse. It isn’t just a matter of gender equality.

The discipline of economics, as practised overwhelmingly by middle class white men, is too abstract, too inward-looking, too prone to claiming spurious accuracy and too remote from ordinary people’s lives.

If it were a more diverse profession – not only in terms of gender – the range and depth of economic thought would be greater and the MPC might be better able to communicate with an often baffled public.