Women CEOs Can Screw Up As badly As The Men

One way of looking at the Post Office scandal is as a triumph for feminism.

Stick with me.

The former Post Office CEO Paula Vennells is seen to have screwed up the Horizon IT issue so badly she has returned her CBE. The end, presumably, to what was a distinguished career.

No one said she got this wrong because she was female. No one said the Post Office should not have had a woman boss in the first place.

After the financial crisis there was quite a lot of commentary about how there would have been a different outcome if it was Lehman Sisters and not Lehman Brothers. Female execs, the argument went, would not have been so foolishly gung-ho.

I really believed that argument at the time, and I have some sympathy for it now.

My position on who should be in charge of stuff is basically this:

Men can muck about with football clubs and pubs. If it’s actually important, women bosses are better.

But we have just sat through a series of all female scandals. Alison Rose of NatWest leaked confidential client information to try to make her bank look better.

Michelle Mone trousered millions by exploiting a global health crisis, and then lied about it to make herself look better.

Paula Vennells might have to go into Fred Goodwin style hiding, such is her public standing.

Other female CEOs, not disgraced, but whose legacy is questionable, must include former Royal Mail boss Moya Greene and Cynthia Carroll, former chief of Anglo American.

So forget Lehman Sisters. Women can make a hash of things every bit as badly as men, given the chance.

No one, not even Nigel Farage, suggested their gender was part of the problem.

As I said, it’s progress.