Starmer shouldn't mind law chief dressing him down

The normalisation of women in senior positions in public life continues apace. Rachel Reeves, the first female chancellor, was sitting next to Angela Rayner as she stood in at Prime Minister’s Questions today, in the middle of a row of six women on the government front bench.

- JOHN RENTOUL

(Some parts of public life are less normalised than others: opposite the cabinet, Oliver Dowden was flanked by male shadow ministers – the Conservative benches in parliament being instantly identifiable as a quadrant of dark suits.)

The highest ranks of the judiciary have also been conquered. Sue Carr became the first lady chief justice a year ago, and on Tuesday she delivered a striking and powerful speech at the Mansion House in the City of London.

She said what you would expect the top judge in England and Wales to say in the run-up to a Budget, namely that, in order for the courts and judiciary to secure the rule of law, they need “sustainable and long-term funding”. She said: “We have a judicial system that has almost been taken for granted as the envy of the world.”

And she cannily secured a headline – in The Independent at least – by recounting how an anonymous judge had to “climb onto a court roof to clear a gutter that was blocked and causing a leak”.