With Theresa May's new Cabinet now in place, it has to be said that it's been a pretty brutal 'reshuffle' as well as being a bit of a 'curate's egg'.
The new Prime Minister has made huge changes, with 9 previous senior ministers leaving the cabinet and making this one of the most wholesale reshuffles of modern times. George Osborne, Michael Gove, Nicky Morgan, John Whittingdale, Theresa Villiers, Oliver Letwin, Mark Harper and Baroness Tina Stowell have all been sacked while Stephen Crabb has resigned. Rarely has there been such a clear out.
The new appointments have not necessarily been without interest. The appointment of Boris Johnson as Foreign Secretary took the early news, being something of a surprise to almost everyone, though Philip Hammond's move to the Treasury had been much anticipated. Few have kept their old jobs, Jeremy Hunt at Health and Michael Fallon at Defence being the only 2 major figures so to do, while the Scottish and Welsh Secretaries also hung on, at least partly due to their positions as the only acceptable candidates.
However, some other posts may be more contentious. Andrea Leadsom, who made such a horlicks of her leadership bid, has unaccountably been rewarded with the job of Environment Secretary, God knows why. Liz Truss, who strikes me as being pretty useless and certainly has presentational issues, has been promoted to become Justice Secretary and the first Lord Chancellor in British history; again, I find the appointment baffling. Similarly, the reasons for the appointments of Amber Rudd to the Home Office and Karen Bradley to Culture, Media and Sport, plus the move of Justine Greening from International Development to Education, seem to owe more to their gender than any real track record of political achievement, none of them having been MPs for very long. Priti Patel is another woman who has been promoted to Cabinet level after not many years of parliamentary experience, while Natalie Evans, who becomes Leader of the House of Lords, only joined that illustrious house 2 years ago.
Many of the rest have, at least, years of experience behind them. David Davis who will oversee the country's exit from the European Union, Liam Fox who has been given responsibility for international trade, Damian Green, Chris Grayling, David Liddington and Patrick McLoughlin have all been MPs for periods approaching 20 years or more. Others who have less experience include Gavin Williamson as Chief Whip and Sajid Javed as Communities Secretary, the latter seemingly being demoted after having had rapid promotions previously, and James Brokenshire, all being MPs only since 2010. Greg Clark has been an MP since 2005 and is the new Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.
One wonders if this mixture of experience and inexperience, novelty and femininity will produce the desired results, or will there be another reshuffle before very long ?
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