Today saw this government’s first, and highly anticipated government reshuffle. Much of it was as expected, but in case you’ve missed it, here’s what happened…
In the big news of the day Chancellor Sajid Javid resigned and was replaced by former Treasury man Rishi Sunak.
Julian Smith (Northern Ireland), Esther Mcvey (Housing), Andrea Leadsom (BEIS), Geoffrey Cox (Attorney General) and Theresa Villiers (DEFRA) all faced the axe.
Alok Sharma was appointed the new BEIS Secretary and will also be the minister for the COP26 in Edinburgh later this year. Anne-Marie Trevelyan was appointed as Department for International Development Secretary. Oliver Dowden became the new Secretary for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Suella Braverman was appointed Attorney General. Brandon Lewis moved to Northern Ireland Secretary. Stephen Barclay made a quick return to Government as Chief Secretary to the Treasury after his Brexit department was disbanded. Chris Pincher was appointed Minister for Housing. James Cleverley was appointed Minister of State in Foreign Office and International Development.
There were also some more minor Cabinet chops and changes. A full minute by minute account of all the days action can be found here.
So, what does this reshuffle mean?
Essentially, it means two things. Firstly, Boris is centralising power. With his large majority he does not need to pander to big beasts in the party, nor the ERG. He is therefore free to create a Cabinet in his shadow. It is not known exactly what the issue was with Javid’s aides, but it almost certainly had something to do with Johnson’s now notorious Chief Special Advisor Dominic Cummings.
There does seem to be a growing public anger at Cummings’ back-seat driving. However, it is unlikely that this will materialise into a resignation. It could however, present an opportunity for attack for whoever Labour elect as their new leader.
Secondly, it means we have the relatively unknown and thoroughly untested Sunak next door to Number 10. This means that reading into the upcoming Budget on 11th March will be more difficult. However, we must accept Sunak’s appointment for what it is. He is not a big beast – he is there to push Boris’ big election spending promises, particularly in Labour’s traditional Red Wall.
As Politicos wrote after the election ‘We are all living in Dominic Cumming’s World Now’. We are starting to see it take shape. For all his talk of system learning, he does seem rather fond of people who agree with him.
Ben's Blog 