Theresa May looks smug after asking why all three female PMs have been Tories

Theresa May looked extremely smug as she hailed the Conservatives’ record of producing female prime ministers.

The ex PM asked the new occupant of Number 10, Liz Truss, why she thought all three previous women prime ministers had been Tories at PMQs earlier.

The pair, alongside Margaret Thatcher, are the only females to have led the UK – while Labour has not even had a permanent female party leader.

Maidenhead MP May told the Commons: ‘May I congratulate her (Truss) and welcome her to her position as the third female prime minister.

‘Can I ask her why does she think it is that all three female prime ministers have been Conservative?’

The new PM replied: ‘I thank her for her fantastic question and I look forward to calling on her advice from her time in office as I start my work as Prime Minister.

‘It is quite extraordinary isn’t it, that there doesn’t seem to be the ability in the Labour party to find a female leader or indeed a leader who doesn’t come from north London.’

To raucous cries from the Tory benches, Mr Truss added: ‘I don’t know what it is, I don’t know what the issue is.’

Both Sir Keir Starmer and his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn live in North London.

Truss’ has filled her senior team with women and men of colour, meaning that for the first time ever none of the ‘great offices of state’ are filled by white men.

However, her cabinet does contains a higher proportion of privately-educated ministers than Boris Johnson’s, research suggests.

The Sutton Trust has found that 68% of the new Prime Minister’s cabinet attended fee-paying schools, compared with 64% in Boris Johnson’s first cabinet in 2019. Only 7% of the public as a whole are privately educated.

The proportion is two times higher than in Theresa May’s 2016 cabinet, in which just 30% had attended fee-paying schools, and also greater than cabinets under the 2010 coalition (62%) and David Cameron’s 2015 cabinet (50%).

Of the remaining ministers, 19% were educated at comprehensive schools and 10% attended grammar schools.

While the Prime Minister herself attended a comprehensive school, her chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng attended the prestigious public school Eton College, and Foreign Secretary James Cleverly, Home Secretary Suella Braverman and Deputy Prime Minister and Health Secretary Therese Coffey also went to independent schools.

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Education minister Kit Malthouse also received a private-school education.

Oxbridge graduates are also well-represented amongst Liz Truss’s ministers, with 35% of those attending her cabinet meeting on Wednesday having gone to either Oxford or Cambridge universities.

But the Prime Minister’s cabinet has a lower proportion of privately-educated ministers than in earlier Conservative cabinets, such as Margaret Thatcher’s in 1979 (91%) and John Major’s in 1992 (71%).

Her top team has also faced equality concerns around LGBTQ+ rights.

It is in fact some years now since we last had an openly LGBT member of the cabinet. The last was @DavidMundellDCT under Theresa May in 2019. That is despite the fact that the Conservative Party as a whole has relatively good LGBT representation.

— Paul Brand (@PaulBrandITV) September 7, 2022

ITV’s Paul Brand tweeted: This is a diverse new cabinet, but not in terms of LGBT representation.

‘Four of the most senior cabinet members voted against extending same-sex marriage to Northern Ireland in 2019. Therese Coffey, Suella Braverman, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Simon Clarke.’

The broadcaster’s UK editor, who is himself gay, continued: ‘This is significant not because every cabinet (a relatively small number of ministers) can be expected to perfectly represent every minority. But because it is largely LGBT issues over which the so-called ‘culture wars’ are being waged. It gives us an idea of the govt’s leaning.

‘It is in fact some years now since we last had an openly LGBT member of the cabinet. The last was (David Mundell) under Theresa May in 2019. That is despite the fact that the Conservative Party as a whole has relatively good LGBT representation.’

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