There will be no women Liberal Democrat cabinet ministers in this parliament

"And owing to ... what's that something of circumstances you hear people talking about? Cats enter into it, if I remember rightly."

Would concatenation be the word for which you are groping?"

"That's it. Owing to a concatenation of circumstances...."

Thank you, Jeeves.

Owing to an unfortunate concatenation of circumstances, as Stephen Tall makes clear, there are to be no female Liberal Democrat cabinet ministers in this parliament now that Nick Clegg has decided not to have a reshuffle before the next election:

It’s an understandable decision in some ways. The best time to promote Jo [Swinson] (and there’s no doubt she deserves to be in the cabinet on merit) would have been a year ago, when Nick reshuffled his ministerial team. That would have given her 18 months in post, time to achieve something in office. However, she was just about to go on maternity leave. Promoting Jo now would mean she has just six months in post at a time when she’ll want to focus all her political energy on retaining her marginal East Dunbartonshire constituency. 

But the decision not to reshuffle does mean the Lib Dems will have gone an entire five years in government without a single one of our female MPs becoming a cabinet minister. That’s not a record in government of which we can be proud.

I would only add that it is not a record of which Nick Clegg can be proud.

As he should have learnt by now, people have an unfortunate habit of judging you, not on your words or intentions,but on your actions.