I wonder if Yvette Cooper will be able to take advantage of any kind of special relationship with the American Secretary of State – a feeling of sisterhood perhaps.
It is interesting how women have been able to rise in relatively large numbers to the top (or near to the top) in the field of foreign policy & diplomacy – much more so, I think than in economic or monetary affairs.
Hillary Clinton, Madeleine Albright, Condoleezza Rice, even Catherine Ashton …
Ed Miliband’s distribution of portfolios to his new Labour Shadow Cabinet may turn out, in the longer term, to be an inspired one. By forcing his stars to broaden out into new areas of policy will, hopefully, develop them as politicians much more than would a policy of sticking to their ‘expertise’.
One of the most shocking outcomes of thirteen years of Labour government was the failure to develop any real heavyweight politicians from among those 1997 entrants.
