Politics is ideally about getting things done, but so often getting the optics right is everything. Brutality that does not spark disloyalty is what you want. This was not a full blown change around, but it was big enough and had casualties.
So far everyone, both publicly and behind the scenes are being very polite.
Kemi Badenoch’s reshuffle was wider, and deeper, and a little more brutal than expected. Slightly exasperated messages to her team as to why, last week, they’d been playing down the scale of yesterday’s events were met with the explanation that, in a very busy bank holiday weekend in Torydom, Sir James Cleverly’s announcement he was leaving the shadow cabinet to run for Mayor of London had opened up the possibility of a more profound change on the front bench.
I’m only slightly buying that.
The fact that Cleverly had been seriously contemplating a run at Mayor has been known in LOTO for months, and most involved were fairly certain he’d do it. Nothing is confirmed until confirmed, but Kemi Badenochs team must have had scenarios around a replacement long before he told her of his decision on Thursday.
So Cleverly removed himself from the Shadow Cabinet. This added to changes imposed on LOTO already. Julia Lopez needed a job as the department she shadowed no longer exists, Helen Grant asked to step away as shadow attorney general, Claire Coutinho is about to go on maternity leave.
Change was inevitable, despite two months ago Badenoch telling ConHome’s Oliver Dean “I’m not planning a reshuffle… at the moment“. The moment, as many Shadow Cabinet told me at the time, might come if Starmer fell, and Burnham succeeded, and then rearranged the Cabinet. This is what happened, and quicker than Starmer, Badenoch, and let’s be honest Burnham, expected. When the herd moves and all that
However despite the ‘machinery of government’ changes that presented themselves to LOTO, the word was still the reshuffle now widely expected as Parliament returned was not precisely timed, and was limited to steers about new faces being brought in, not so much older ones going.
So much for that.
Sir Mel Stride, Stuart Andrew, Nigel Huddleston, Dame Priti Patel, are all returning to the back benches. Only one of them, Stride, had decent scores on the last ConHome Shadow Cabinet League Table.
Dame Priti Patel has a better internal reputation than recent briefings against her might suggest. However, in the end, she could not shake off the adhesive blame for not tackling or stopping the so called Boriswave. She was however afforded the space to announce her own departure in a statement, and has been given another role, albeit it outside the Shadow Cabinet.
The Conservative international role is actually more important, or valuable perhaps, than people think, but it also gives her time to work in Witham her constituency, when Reform UK in Essex are crowing they’ll take seats there, come a General Election.
And here’s the key. It’s quite clear that Badenoch, who to opponents appeared presumptuous in asking for “access talks” with the Civil Service last week – a protocol often afforded to the Opposition ahead of an election – was clearly trying to flush out a suspicion, that has now solidified.
The top of the Conservative Party is now sure Burnham will go early.
That request, Priti Patel stressing the benefit of having time in Witham, the change of faces on the front bench, the systematic timetable of choosing new candidates for key seats, that the bigging up of the quality of those wanting to stand as Chairman Kevin Hollinrake wrote yesterday, it’s all there.
They think the next election is coming in less than six months, not two years.
Let’s return to the reshuffle with that prism.
Long time, these pages have been filled with people telling Badenoch that she needed to signal the “change” in her party from that of 2024, by ‘ditching deadwood’ or those too saddled by association with the last Government. Urgent calls to bring in the newbies, and out with the old.
Names suggested, often by their most ardent supporters, included Katie Lam, Rebecca Paul and Harriet Cross. That was clearly heard as they are now respectively shadow Housing, Communities and Local Government, shadow Culture Media and Sport, and shadow Scottish Secretary. Lam has lost none of the ‘rising star’ shine she seemed to just arrive with.
Other names mentioned, Aphra Brandreth, Jack Rankin, Robbie Moore, do not feature in this front bench reshuffle but could well as shadow ministers in new teams.
Then there is the optics of theme. A thematic buddy system for a possible campaign based of themes.
There is a new “economic team”.
And Sir Mel Stride isn’t in it.
He returns to the back benches, with typical good grace:
“It has been an honour to have served as Shadow Chancellor for almost two years, alongside an exceptionally strong team and a great leader in Kemi.”
Mel Stride, of all the 2024 leadership hopefuls was never shy of his association with the former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. Mel stepped up during the General Election more than anyone, in fighting the case, when others hung back for fear of the mud that would stick, when, inevitably they lost.
From that he was made shadow Chancellor by Badenoch and worked tirelessly to regain trust on the economy. Polling shows between them they did. He provided a policy with which Badenoch could, early than anticipated, wow a wary Conference last year. Stamp duty abolition won’t itself be an election winner, but it helped cement the ‘rise and reign’ of Kemi as leader.
Perhaps whilst knowing it would be branded a ‘sacking’ , she said yesterday:
“Like Priti, Mel came into the job at an exceptionally difficult point for the Conservative Party. He brought experience, seriousness and stability when those things were badly needed. He helped us steady the ship, rebuild economic credibility and become an effective opposition, and I am genuinely grateful for his contribution. The Conservative Party would not have got where we are without his work and his very effective skewering of Rachel Reeves and her disastrous time as Chancellor. Mel has been very supportive of the new economic team and the Party, and been exceptionally loyal, and I will always be grateful to him for the work he has done”
The risks to the Tories of fighting an early election are the sort that Stride would see and understand, and possibly accept might need to override the fact that I’m certain he’d rather have stayed and finished the job.
The new economic team is designed to lead her ‘economic revolution’ one that despite not being the case Mel Stride may have seemed a little too reasonable, to be an evangelic about, on top of the whole managerial Rishi association.
Andrew Griffith has barely disguised that shadow Chancellor is what he wanted to be, and it is now what he is. He has a dynamo work ethic that matches the attitude of his Reform counterpart, Robert Jenrick, and the huge business experience the entire Labour front bench lack. Yes, he advocated for Liz Truss, but Andrew is interested in growth, growth and more growth, it was likely to be a message and goal, if not the fumbled delivery, that he liked.
But this is a new team, so in steps Claire Coutinho, as his deputy, and shadow Business Secretary and speaking of business experience, the quietly impressive Richard Fuller, himself no stranger to high end private sector leadership makes up the triumvirate.
Claire Coutinho’s time table is dictated right now by biology not boss, so Julia Lopez, a close friend and ally of Badenoch, will cover her maternity leave.
Andrew Bowie was always planned to do the second maternity cover, but Coutinho’s promotion means he simply becomes shadow Secretary of State for Energy Security, in his own right.
Security is another theme: James Cartlidge stays covering Defence, Tom Tugendhat comes in as shadow Foreign Secretary. Many have already tried to make the Reform line about an ‘army of Lib Dems in the Tory ranks’ stick to this appointment. Tom is not and never has been. He supported remain; he’s accepted Brexit. He wrote about leaving the ECHR in January, and he’s a hawk on Russia and China. That attack won’t stick unless those making it didn’t want to be convinced in the first place.
It says something about the belief within the party that renewal is real that Tom was persuaded to come back in. It says something about him that his first words on taking the role were not about him but praise for Priti Patel.
Chris Philp might have had a nervous few weeks, after some suggested he was in the same zone as Stride and Patel but with Chris that boundless energy to keep at it, is never far from the surface, and he remains as Shadow Home Secretary. This arena too being sold as a partnership on law and order with Nick Timothy staying as Shadow Justice Secretary.
Themed teams, new faces, old legacies exiting.
There’s a word to be said about unexpected arrivals. Joy Morrissey will be champing at the bit to take on demoted but still present Bridget Phillipson over women and equalities and Damian Hinds rises from the shadows to shadow. Again some will try brand him a wet, or a Lib Dem, I don’t buy that and I don’t think Badenoch buys it either – she wants to offer a team that can do a job.
She wants to say to people ‘look at this front bench, it is full, I have reserves and I can make choices.’ The message will be that they have experience Labour and Reform don’t, and they have less baggage now from the last Government that most of Reform’s MPs.
Why do these optics matter now?
It’s to enter a vital (possibly more so than last year) Conference season, and autumn, with a Budget, a new Government and new Prime Minister, with new styles of battle about to be tried.
Last year Conference was about Kemi Badenoch, this year it’s about the brand.
Can she bring the party team, and wider brand up the slopes she has herself successfully slogged?
Otherwise the reshuffle is a busted flush and that won’t be lost poker player Badenoch.