At some point after the end of April, when Dominic Raab was replaced as Justice Secretary by Alex Chalk, Rishi Sunak bowed to the inevitable – or at least the apparent. He recognised that he is on track to lose the next general election. And accepted that he must tear up his timetable and roll the dice if he is to win it. A riskier Cabinet reshuffle than the mini-change which saw Chalk’s appointment is part of that gamble.
Such is the sum of bits of briefing I’ve had during the past week or so, of observation, and of putting scraps of conversation with various people together. At some point soon and if it lasts, I’ll write more about the Prime Minister’s change of heart or at least of mind – so out of kilter with the caution he’s shown since entering Downing Street and the character of his gradualist political strategy. Perhaps he will answer this summer the question I put last winter: is he a politician?
But today, I’ll focus on one aspect of this shake-up: the shuffle. Downing Street will want to project it as The Team To Win The Election. But it isn’t at all clear how Sunak is going to pull it off, for three reasons.
First, timing. The logic of radical change suggests taking a hit from three by-election losses, pausing for a week or so to avoid charges of panic, and then announcing changes. This might have worked smoothly had those elections, about which Lord Ashcroft writes on this site today, taken place roughly a fortnight ago. The Prime Minister could then have carried out the reshuffle this week, seen Tory MPs depart for recess, and so give his new Ministers time to settle in before Party Conference.
But the time is out of joint. Since Parliament breaks up this Thursday, Sunak must either hold his shuffle this week, and see it land amidst gruesome by-election results; wait until next week, by which time MPs will have left Westminster; or else do what his more cautious advisers in Number Ten have always preferred – namely, to let the heat from the by-elections cool down, and hold the reshuffle when the Commons returns in September.
Second, personnel. Political journalists have a way, as shuffles approach, of recycling each other’s copy. Having got that precaution in first, I confess to hearing much the same as others, at least when it comes to departures. Beside Ben Wallace – going of his own volition and with a broadside at Downing Street – the names that keep coming up are Therese Coffey and, up to a point, Steve Barclay. (And perhaps Alister Jack, though his case is sui generis.)
That would mean three dismissals. Two or fewer tend be greeted as a flop; six or more as evidence of panic. Three gone from a Cabinet of 32 – counting in all those entitled to attend – would scarcely be headline-making news. Who else? The rest of the Prime Minister’s top team divides up between potential successors he would be prudent to leave alone (Kemi Badenoch, Suella Braverman, James Cleverly, Penny Mordaunt) and Sunak loyalists (nearly everyone else).
Finally, then, scale. The bolder the shuffle, the bigger the risks – and potential rewards. Which takes one straight to the top, or as near to it as one can get. There is no particular reason to move the Foreign Secretary (though some are touting him for Defence) and none whatsoever to move the Home Secretary, given the logic of her original appointment and her role in reassuring the right of the Party. The last thing the Prime Minister needs is a departing Braverman claiming that he has gone soft on small boats.
That leaves the Chancellor. As William Atkinson has written on this site, the sum of Government economic policy is that if isn’t hurting, it isn’t working. The case for keeping Jeremy Hunt is that it would hurt just as much under any other Chancellor, and that there is no point in introducing a new, smiling face to front the same, grim policy. And in any event, the markets take Hunt seriously – or, to put it another way, a shake-up at the Treasury might well spook them.
The case for change is a bit hesistant and wistful – and boils down to a longing in some quarters of the Government for a campaigning genius who will flat-foot Keir Starmer as the election approaches. But when asked to name this wunderkind, answer comes there none. Michael Gove? The Prime Minister will be wary of anyone who has ideas of their own, however superlatively they perform in the Commons or capably they can run a department.
The biggest obstacle of all to a reshuffle which aims to unveil The Team To Win The Election is that – for all the talent in the middle and junior ranks of the government, and despite the record number of present and former Ministers in the Commons, the turmoil of the last eight years has drained the Parliamentary Party of heavyweight reputation, experience, and name recognition. If, that is, one puts aside the biggest obstacles of all to political recovery: exhaustion, hesitancy of purpose, and drift.
Here is a stab at the kind of changes that might happen, most likely in September, but don’t rule out sooner – perhaps very soon indeed. Sunak will want to ensure that any new Cabinet contains more women than the last: from the Ministers of State, that could mean Victoria Atkins, perhaps if an immigration brief became vacant; from lower down, Claire Coutinho were, say, the Chief Secretary post to need filling.
In that event, John Glen, recently of the Royal College of Defence Studies, might have moved to replace Ben Wallace – if Tom Tugendhat hasn’t done so. Were the Prime Minister’s change of approach to encompass a confrontational approach to Woke and a ruthless one to the ECtHR, I could imagine a medley of moves encompassing Gillian Keegan, Michelle Donelan, Lucy Frazer and their departments, plus Climate Change. Victoria Prentis might replace Coffey and Michael Ellis succeed her.
If Sunak is in full Bring Backery mode, don’t be surprised by the return of Liam Fox, who just missed out time round. Were Barclay to leave Health, it might get Grant Shapps, Gove or Robert Jenrick.
Jeremy Quin could be another runner for Chief Secretary, with Alex Burghart moving up to replace him in the Cabinet Office. The most plausible recruit for Cabinet from Camp Truss would be Simon Clarke. The appointments above may be wide of the mark but expect to see some of the new names in lights. And keep an eye out for other women Ministers who backed the Prime Minister in the leadership election, such as Helen Whateley and Laura Trott. Anne-Marie Trevelyan is also being punted.
There is a gap between the scale of what Sunak needs to do, if he sees through his change of plan, and the personnel available to him. He will have the period between the by-election results late on Thursday and the opening of the Conservative conference in October to put it into effect. That looks like his last chance to get a new hearing (unless known unknowns or unknown ones intervene), if the moment hasn’t passed already.