What should ministers wear?
Nigel Williams, 17 July 2014
This week two different groups of women ministers were offered more senior positions. David Cameron chose to shuffle out several secretaries of state, including Michael Gove and Owen Paterson, rather than allow the electorate to give their verdict in less than a year. Their replacements, Nicky Morgan and Liz Truss, had to suffer also the Daily Mail’s verdict on their outfits. Rather more important, we might hope, would be consideration of whether one can pursue the programme of introducing more content into school curricula, without antagonising the teachers required to deliver it, and the other has enough understanding of the science affecting the environment to take wellies when visiting flooded areas. Owen Paterson famously failed to go suitably shod to the Somerset Levels. At least there we have an example of where a newspaper may decently comment on a minister’s clothing.
Meanwhile in York, another location that is bracing itself against increased flood risk, the anticipated vote to allow women to be consecrated as Church of England bishops finally happened. Ordained as priests since 1994 and as deacons before that, they have witnessed a long and tortuous process to find a settlement with which even opponents are content. Now the most senior order of ministry is open to women too. Several dioceses already have vacancies, so the first female bishops’ appointments could follow immediately after the formalities of parliamentary ratification. Once appointed, they will have their spiritual orders for life and their administrative duties until retirement. Significantly, women now have the prospect of occupying some or all of the 26 seats in the House of Lords reserved for bishops.
Bishops’ clothing is not the most important part of their job, but it is a symbol of it. Think of mitres, purple shirts, rings and pectoral crosses, plus items with exotic names like ‘chimere’ and ‘rochet’. These seldom make the news when men wear them, but when put on by women for the first time it will be well worth reporting.
Understanding the Church of England, an aspect of national cultural literacy, can take a lifetime, but the new Secretary of State for Education could do worse than recommending What Your Year 3 Child Needs to Know on the subject of Elizabeth I. It does not comment on what the first Supreme Governor of the Church of England wore but it does look at religious compromise and explain the meaning of the word ‘vestments’. In the geography section of the same book is an explanation of watersheds and drainage basins. The new Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs will need rather more detailed advice than that, but it has to be an advantage if even year 3 children and, one hopes, their voting parents, can understand the challenges she faces.