Universities minister quits as PM changes face of govt

David Willetts, the United Kingdom universities and science minister in David Cameron’s coalition government since 2010, has quit to return to the back benches and will leave parliament at the next general election in 2015.

The decision to leave the job coincided with a far-reaching cabinet reshuffle aimed at overcoming the prime minister’s perceived problem with women by promoting more into senior posts.

Cameron’s allies presented the reshuffle as a bold move to shift perceptions of his cabinet as dominated by public school educated male toffs from the Tory heartlands of the shires.

But Willetts is being replaced by a 46-year-old male from the south-east – Greg Clark (pictured). Clark retains a role as financial secretary to the Treasury, confirming his place at the cabinet table, and bringing together a new responsibility for universities and science with his existing role in promoting cities and local growth.

Humble beginnings

Clark, MP for the south-east constituency of Royal Tunbridge Wells, was however born in the northern city of Middlesbrough, which has been heavily hit by the decades-long decline of heavy industry. His father was a milkman while his mother worked at a supermarket checkout counter. He attended a local state school.

And he is not a Tory born and bred – his political career began while reading economics at Magdelane College in Cambridge, where he joined the Social Democratic Party, the short-lived breakaway from the Labour Party led by the ‘Gang of Four’ which was popular with academics but failed electorally.

He became an executive member of its student wing, Social Democrat Youth and Students.

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