Priti Patel’s scores as Home Secretary in our Cabinet League Table were mostly very low. Her final appearance saw her fifth from bottom on 5.5 points. She had occasionally fallen into negative territory.
The reason can only have been that a big swathe of our Party members’ panel believed that she hadn’t got a grip on illegal immigration – no matter how many new initiatives she took or press releases she issued.
Her poor returns were all the more striking because Ministers on the right of the Party, such as Patel herself, usually come high up the table, as she herself once did before her term at the Home Office dragged her down.
You may conclude that Suella Braverman is fifth from bottom on 20.5 points because of the controversy over the use of her private devices for Government devices, or her consultations with John Hayes, or her liaison with Policy Exchange.
Or you may believe that panel members share Roger Gale’s view of the Home Secretary’s culpability for what has happened at Manston. Or because of her use of the word “invasion”
My take is that the Panel has marked Braverman low because many members of it believe that for all her rhetoric on stopping small boats nothing much will actually be done.
Elsewhere, Ben Wallace continues his long reign at the top of the table, with Kemi Badenoch and James Cleverly a very competitive second and third, and Steve Barclay fourth. They are only four Cabinet members who score above 50 points.
The panel is clearly feeling its way as a new Cabinet is thrust upon it, having scarcely had time to register Liz Truss’s before it vanished.
Rishi Sunak comes it at a respectable but far from outstanding 49.9 points. Gavin Williamson returns to find himself haunted by the ghost of Peter Mandelson: fairly or unfairly, he can’t shake off the image of a modern Machiavelli.