Where does the establishment reside in the 21st century? One of its homes is 15 Garrick Street, London. The membership list of the Garrick Club, as reported by the Guardian this week, includes senior judges and lawyers, peers and ministers, along with the heads of thinktanks and companies, rock stars, actors, senior journalists, the heads of MI6 and the civil service, and King Charles – but not a single woman. Men in charge of modern courts, government, business and culture relish membership of an institution which is 19th century not only in origin but mindset.
Private members’ clubs are inherently exclusive: joining is expensive, and applicants are vetted by those already inside. It is not a great surprise, then, that the Garrick is overwhelmingly white and generally aged as well as male-only. Members like to portray it as old-fashioned in another regard: a little snoozy, though faintly glamorous thanks to its historical and geographical positioning in London’s theatreland. Nothing really important happens here: why, the rules prohibit working on club premises. Yet members concede that it is done in reality, just discreetly – and it would be naive to imagine that familiarity with influential people within its walls does not bestow advantage outside. The club is one of the many means through which power remains concentrated in an utterly unrepresentative slice of the British population.
The progress made in recent decades is important. But it can also disguise persistent inequality: many cheered Brenda Hale’s tenure as president of the supreme court, but only two of the 12 justices are female. According to the Fawcett Society’s Sex and Power report, less than a third of the UK’s top jobs were filled by women in 2022.
It is not fair when individuals’ talents and experience are not properly recognised. But the bigger issue is that when institutions are so unrepresentative of the population they serve, they will struggle to truly serve the population’s interests. This is especially so when their leaders claim a commitment to equality and diversity while embracing an organisation that has not merely failed to include a part of society, but deliberately and explicitly excludes it. Simon Case, the cabinet secretary, and Richard Moore, the MI6 chief, resigned only after colleagues criticised their membership. More than 60 lawyers have urged judges to quit the club, arguing that membership is incompatible with core principles of justice, equality and fairness – particularly for senior figures shaping the law on gender-based discrimination and inequality, and gendered crimes of violence and abuse.
Some members have championed opening the club to women (though deeds have often failed to match words). But a two-thirds majority would be required for change, and half of the membership disagreed at the last vote. One important question is why female members are anathema to these men. What do they find so threatening or disturbing? But another is why men who recognise the issue and who do respect women in many regards still choose to join a club that rejects them.
The Garrick exists in a society beset by grotesque inequality, with rising poverty and declining social mobility, where women struggle with benefit cuts, domestic abuse, sexual violence and much more. No one imagines that its reform could solve this. But adherence to its creed of exclusion is one small part of a big and serious problem.
