Dame Helen Ghosh: women struggle to get into David Cameron's old Etonian clique If you look at the current government, not necessarily back to the Bullingdon Club days, but Cameron, it is true, it is well known, has a clique, a network of friends - the friends he made at school, friends he made at university. She said this kind of network "does impact on women." "Women don't network," Dame Helen said. She expressed disappointment that the number of women running Government departments has dropped since the Coalition came to power. "There was a magical moment some time in 2006 and 2007 when half of the government departments were run by women," she said. But it is still true for the Treasury and the Cabinet Office that the top jobs are still going to men, which I regret. Female Cabinet ministers do a bit of networking among themselves but the other networks in governments are often much, much more powerful - whether it's the Etonian clique or the Brownites or the Blairites. Dame Helen, who worked under Theresa May, the Home Secretary, told the students that women need "enormous emotional resilience" to put up with criticism of their appearance. She also spoke of her "regret" young women in the civil service will lack senior female role models even more, now that she is leaving for the National Trust. A Downing Street source immediately contradicted the civil servant's claims, saying she is "factually wrong." "There are a number of women in the Prime Minister's senior team," he said. The Prime Minister's official spokesman said the comments are "not true" and Mr Cameron has made a point of bringing in "new female talent." However, Sheila Gilmore, a Labour MP, accused the current Government of having "a problem with women." She said: "[David Cameron's] decision to surround himself with his old schoolmates doesn't seem to be working out so well for him. He needs to stop telling women to "calm down dear" and start listening to them instead. David Cameron's boys-only clique is making a complete mess of running the country.