The South Eastern grip on the shadow cabinet

Its no surprise that the shadow cabinet represents constituencies within a small geographical area. The leading lights of the Labour party tend to represent constituencies from the North of England and Scotland; until recently the LibDems leading lights tended to come from their strongholds of the Celtic fringes.

But for the Tories, out of 28 (an extraordinary number given that the Cabinet has a maximum capacity in the low 20s) shadow cabinet members from the Commons:

* Only 2 represent North of England constituencies. That they are the shadow Chancellor and shadow Foreign Secretary; and that the next most northerly (English) member is Ken Clarke means that the North is numerically under-represented in the shadow cabinet (by a huge margin) but has 3 of the 4 senior members of it.

* 4 of the 28 (twice as many as the contingent from the North) represent Surrey, a county of 11 constituencies.

* Every one of the standard regions of Great Britain are represented, except Wales and the North East. By contrast, in the (Labour) Cabinet I can't find anyone from the East Midlands, but every other region is represented. And the LibDems don't have anyone from the West Midlands, East Midlands, or North East, all of which regions they only have one (East Mids and North East) or two (West Mids) representatives

* Only one shadow cabinet member represents a London seat - the Conservatives have 21 of the 74 seats, but just the one representative at their top table - by contrast Labour have 2 and the LibDems 4

* 12 of the 28 are from the most populous region, the South East. This makes the Scottish grip on the Cabinet (4 from 20) seem almost weak.