IT DIDN'T take long for Labour's new leader, Jeremy Corbyn, to land himself in hot water. Mr Corbyn took hits from all sides on September 14th as his shadow cabinet took shape—and was quickly judged by detractors within and outside the party to be "male, pale and stale". In a confused panic the leader announced a raft of appointments later in the day, which included a number of women, albeit in lower cabinet positions.

In 2014 David Cameron, the prime minster, made his final cabinet reshuffle before the May 2015 general election and appointed several women to senior posts to fulfil his promise that a third of the top jobs would be occupied by women at the end of the parliament. This proportion has been met and sustained following the Tories' victory at the general election in May. Women are still unrepresented in Mr Cameron's cabinet relative to society as a whole (not that much of a fuss has been raised).

Thanks to Mr Corbyn's late additions, his cabinet is more representative of the country than Mr Cameron's. But one might question the need for a secretary of state for voter registration in the front-bench team, or whether a separate chief whip for the House of Lords is required.