Articles on Women in Politics

Fresh questions for PM over womens' role in government

Dame Helen Ghosh, former Home Office permanent secretary, says PM has network of friends from school and university

Dame Helen Ghosh, who said: 'It is actually quite difficult for a woman to get in as part of an Old Etonian clique.' Photograph: Steve Parsons/PA

A senior Whitehall figure's reported comments about how difficult it was for women in politics to get into powerful networks and "Old Etonian cliques" prompted fresh questions Thursday over David Cameron's attempts to make the government more "women friendly". Dame Helen Ghosh, who recently retired as permanent secretary at the Home Office appeared to suggest the prime minister had surrounded himself with old friends from school and university, to the exclusion of women – though she denied this interpretation.

In a talk at Cambridge University, the London Evening Standard reported her as saying: "If you look at the current government – not necessarily back to the Bullingdon Club days – but Cameron, it is true, it is well known, has a clique, a network of friends – the friends he made at school, friends he made at university.

The paper also reported her as saying: "Women don't network. It is actually quite difficult for a woman to get in as part of an Old Etonian clique. They are far too busy doing other things, like bringing up their children, looking after their constituency."

In a statement later, Dame Helen said: "It is entirely false to say that I suggested that I think David Cameron surrounds himself by old Etonians – or that he has too few women in his team. A cursory look at the important roles around him reveals it is simply not the case."

Asked about the comments at a Downing Street press conference, the prime minister said: "I understand she is now saying she didn't say what she is reported to have said so I think you might want to bear that in mind."

The Evening Standard said that it stood by the quotations it reported.

Until her recent retirement Dame Helen was one of Britain's most senior civil servants as permanent secretary at the Home Office after a 33-year career in Whitehall.

In 2005, when Ghosh was appointed to her previous post – the top job at Defra – she was the only woman to head a leading department in government. She stepped down from the Home Office in September after 33 years in the civil service, to become director general of the National Trust.

Her departure prompted concerns that Whitehall was looking "maler and paler"

Last year Cameron was accused of patronising two female MPs when he told the Labour MP Angela Eagle to "calm down, dear" and referred to his own MP Nadine Dorries as "frustrated".

Such remarks have angered women already angry about policies that affect them disproportionately.