Our thanks to Jeff for this. The 10 “excuses” from the ridiculous government-backed Hampton-Alexander Review, all of which seem to me to be either invented or reasonable:

• “I don’t think women fit comfortably into the board environment”

• “There aren’t that many women with the right credentials and depth of experience to sit on the board – the issues covered are extremely complex”

• “Most women don’t want the hassle or pressure of sitting on a board”

• “Shareholders just aren’t interested in the make-up of the board, so why should we be?”

• “My other board colleagues wouldn’t want to appoint a woman on our board”

• “All the ‘good’ women have already been snapped up”

• “We have one woman already on the board, so we are done – it is someone else’s turn”

• “There aren’t any vacancies at the moment – if there were I would think about appointing a woman”

• “We need to build the pipeline from the bottom – there just aren’t enough senior women in this sector”

• “I can’t just appoint a woman because I want to”