I’ll be looking at these changes mainly through four lenses: balance, experience, capacity and authority. Who did each member vote for? What experience do they have? How able are they – and who turned down a job?
Robert Buckland, Greg Clark, James Cleverly and Andrew Stephenson come in. The latter joins Ben Elliot as Conservative Party Chairman.
It may be that there’s one between more frequent ballots and a higher threshold – a quarter of the Parliamentary Party, say, rather than 15 per cent.
Andrew is Housing Minister, Cleverly Europe Minister and Ellis and Wheeler move to the Cabinet Office.
Unless studies and data take a turn for the worse, a Cabinet majority for more than Plan B isn’t there.
The resignation of his former SpAd and Brexit negotiator will come as a personal blow to the Prime Minister.
The PM could not use his usual weapon of raillery against his opponents, but was forced to show he takes breaches of the Covid rules as seriously as they do.
Having been so focused on Covid health outcomes, we have lost sight of our nation’s terrible rate of drug-related deaths.
A new volume of essays puts special advisers in historical context, and suggests the Cabinet has been marginalised by a succession of over-mighty PMs.
As a party we should welcome measures that can help address existing shortcomings.