So the Home Secretary is a woman. That's no big deal

The new Cabinet was announced as if Gordon Brown were a circus master. Let us hear it for the youngest foreign secretary for ages and the first woman home secretary ever! Ladies and gentleman, I give you the Miliband Brothers, who spookily resemble the young Brown as well as each other.

Give a big hand to our husband and wife team, Ed Balls and Yvette Cooper. Finally, we have Shaun Woodward, who wins his place in this circus of delights because he is ... a reformed Tory. George Osborne protests in vain that we know all these people already, which is true, but not in this formation. Bold casting is considered a sign of visionary leadership. It is hard on candidates who may be good but plug obvious. It is death for deputies or veterans. An industry of headhunters has been created on the back of the principle that appointments should be astonishing.

A newspaper boss I know consulted a headhunter about finding a deputy editor and was presented with a list of television stars, including Jeremy Clark-son. Of course it is more interesting to say that Michael Palin, or for that matter Darcy Bussell, is your editor than Mr Shirt-Sleeves-and-Braces. Nevertheless, I found it reassuring when the newspaper boss kicked the headhunter out of his office and chose somebody from the trade.

The trouble with "interesting" signings is the anti-climax if they don't come off, and the humiliation for the person who is finally offered the job. The trailing of Chris Patten and Shirley Williams as additions to the Gordon Brown government meant the inclusive appointment of Shaun Woodward produced a quizzical shrug rather than a respectful gasp. Out-of-the-box casting only really works in politics if you are confident of the colossal vanity of your prey or in business if you have wagonloads of dosh.

The most exciting appointment of last year was ITV's signing of the BBC chairman Michael Grade. His salary immediately rose from [pound]140,000 to [pound]825,000 plus bonus. One suspects that the frantic arbitrariness of political appointments, brilliantly depicted in Armando Iannucci's special edition of The Thick of It, is what happens after nights of horse trading.

John Major was not the first person to be chosen because he was not somebody else (in this case, Michael Heseltine). Gordon Brown's piece de re-sistance was the appointment of someone who was, first, a woman, and, second, completely unknown. Why Jacqui Smith? Is it evidence that Brown is more pro-women than Tony Blair? The announcement of the first female home secretary sounds like a feminist landmark until you remember that Brown also got shot of our first female foreign secretary. And since we have already had a female prime minister, isn't it a bit quaint to raise the flag every time a woman gets a mention?

The Brown camp claim that he has a more modern approach to women. He is appointing them for their talent rather than their gender. Jacqui Smith, despite having a hairdresser's name, is no babe. In fact the crumpet in the Cabinet lies with Brown's boys, Douglas Alexander and James Purnell. This, we must regard as progress. Home Secretary is probably the most masculine of titles.

While Harriet Harman demands her job on the grounds of being a woman and sees her role as nagging Gordon Brown about childcare, Jacqui Smith has been responding to a terrorist bomb in London before even getting her high heels under her desk. It is not a feminine job and Jacqui Smith is not a flirtatious kind of woman, but her sex is still significant. The appointment of a Jack Smith would not have had the same impact.

I am surprised how unthinkingly we push women for the sake of diversity. I am often asked to do a piece of broadcasting punditry "because we could do with a woman". It is not what is said, but who is saying it. This is what lies behind the Cabinet of many talents.

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