George Trefgarne: Our Tory women versus the blokes, lads, and chaps should have one positive outcome

George Trefgarne is chief executive of Boscobel & Partners, a consultancy and was previously economics editor of The Telegraph.

There is an interesting piece in the Financial Times about Jane Fraser, the British CEO of Citi, the vast American banking group assembled by Chuck Prince prior to the financial crisis. Citi has for years been a shambling, error-prone behemoth and she is turning it around – chiefly through a process of simplification – with considerable success. The shares are up 61% in the last year.

There are several notable things about Jane Fraser, aside from her success. The first is her education, an excellent all-girls school in Sydney called Ascham School. (One of the many sad side-effects of Labour’s war on private schools here has been the closure or switch to co-ed of many outstanding equivalent establishments). This was followed by a degree in economics at Girton College, Cambridge and an MBA at Harvard.

She is married with two sons to another banker, Alberto Piedra, who moved to a portfolio career so he could focus on the family, allowing her career to progress. Her own success is, in part, a family success story.

Then there is the fact she is evidently promoted on merit. She is no woke, culture warrior as you occasionally find in British boardrooms or the Civil Service. She is just a hard-working woman doing a good job. She has also had the good sense to stay on the right side of Donald Trump.

Sometimes, it takes a woman to lead an organisation. In particular, it is often only a woman who can turn around an organisation where the men have made a total mess. Such was the case in Britain in 1979, with the rise of Margaret Thatcher. It is happening in Italy now, where Giorgia Meloni is doing a pretty good job as Prime Minister. And, one hopes, at my alma mater BP, where Meg O’Neil is cracking on with turning around that benighted company.

I note that at the Telegraph Group the new owners Axel Springer have appointed Carolin Hulshoff Pol to turn around that business too. Good luck to her.

This leads me to British politics.

If you can tear yourself away from the speculation around Andy Burnham, imminently to be installed as Prime Minister, his rise is unfortunately yet another triumph for the sweaty blokes who run the Labour Party. Despite that, I wish him luck as we should any new Prime Minister.

But it is worth noting that whatever the circumstances, Labour seems incapable of transparently electing a female leader, or one from a minority. It then seems to compensate for this embarrassment by leaning toward feminism and minority politics and promoting people like Rachel Reeves and Bridget Phillipson.

You know the type. Possibly beneficiaries of positive discrimination. Not very nice. A tendency to nervous bullying, including of other women. Clever but not wise.

I don’t think the situation is much better at Reform or even the Liberal Democrats or the Greens. Indeed, the feel around Reform very much reminds me of the sort of City pub I used to dread when I started work in the 1990s. Noisy, smelly, lots of booze. Spivvy chat about betting and stock prices. And an enthusiasm for sporting freebies at Royal Ascot or 400-bird pheasant shoots in Kent.

But take a look at the Conservative Party.

It is very striking that it is run not just by one, but three women who are able, decent and full of common sense. Most critically, they are rapidly developing into increasingly substantial politicians

There is Kemi Badenoch herself. She is a graduate not of an elite academy, but the school of hard knocks. As Nigeria descended into chaos, she attended nine schools, including a brutal state boarding school and finally Phoenix College in South London. She took degrees in computing engineering at Sussex University and in law at Birkbeck College. She never had a silver spoon in her mouth.

Her husband, Hamish, is also an interesting person. Of a more traditional British background, he is nonetheless the person who frequently takes principal charge of looking after their three children. Like Citi, the leadership of the Conservative Party is a quietly family enterprise.

Then there is Claire Coutinho, the shadow energy secretary. She was, in my opinion, a rather poor actual energy secretary under Rishi Sunak but it is astonishing how she has turned it around. Pregnant with her second child, she has abandoned the terrible net zero policy and regularly gets the better of Ed Miliband at the Dispatch Box. It is presumably a testament to her efforts that Kemi Badenoch has said anyone who supports Net Zero will be ineligible to stand as a Conservative MP.

She has also obtained information from whistleblowers about the dangerous instability in the grid. She has written LINK to the wonderfully named Mr Finton Slye, chief executive of the National Energy Systems Operator demanding an investigation. If there are power cuts, after this month’s 13 per cent rise in energy bills, expect uproar.

In the shadow education role Laura Trott has also done a phenomenal job, standing up for children and standards against assaults by Bridget Phillipson.

The troika of Tory women are, in some ways, quite similar.

Family-oriented, nice, grounded, positive, professional and hard-working. They don’t “have it all”. They make things work.

One might argue that, earlier in their careers, positive discrimination could have helped a bit. We must not forget that dislodging the glass ceiling has taken some real effort by previous generations of women. But those times have passed. Thankfully, only a few organisations in the country are still entirely male dominated. It is very odd that so many political parties in Westminster are among them.

So take your seats for the Tory women versus the blokes, lads and chaps of the other parties. The Conservatives are recovering, and my guess is they will be ahead in the polls by the Autumn.