UK Cabinet re-shuffle

[MikeG]

I'm amazed there isn't a thread on this already. The most severe reshuffle for quite some time surely deserves some comment.

I am particularly disappointed to lose William Hague from the Foreign Office. I think he has been a great Foreign Secretary, in a long line of really high calibre Foreign Secretaries stretching almost unbroken back to John Major (who wasn't, in my view). He has done a brilliant job on many issues, but I'd highlight his campaign against rape as a weapon of war.

I am also sad to see the venerable, affable Ken Clarke go. He is my sort of Tory. I've met him a number of times, and he really is a sharp brain, and very pleasant company. The government is weaker for his going.

Plenty of the others I won't miss at all, and I am particularly pleased to see the worse-than-ineffectual Owen Patterson gone from Environment. To have a climate change sceptic at the Department in charge of mitigating climate change was..............erm.............ridiculous is about the mildest description I can manage.

Others will have lots to say on Gove, no doubt.

 

[commandlinegamer]

Unfortunately some newspapers have seized on reporter Nick Robinson's comment about Esther McVey on the "Downing Street catwalk". Daily Mail, IIRC, did a feature on the footwear choices of the new women in cabinet.

BTW, is it just me, or is the fact that someone is now allowed to attend cabinet, but not, presumably, able to have a say or vote, just damning them with faint praise?

 

[MikeG]

......... is it just me, or is the fact that someone is now allowed to attend cabinet, but not, presumably, able to have a say or vote, just damning them with faint praise?

Yes, probably. Although I guess it could be argued that this is akin to having youngsters in a sports squad but not in a team as a way of introducing them gently to the atmosphere and expectations.

 

[Craig B]

Yes, probably. Although I guess it could be argued that this is akin to having youngsters in a sports squad but not in a team as a way of introducing them gently to the atmosphere and expectations.

Or "candidate" members of the Presidium of the Soviet Communist Party. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/22nd_Presidium_of_the_Communist_Party_of_the_Soviet_Union

 

[angrysoba]

I'm amazed there isn't a thread on this already. The most severe reshuffle for quite some time surely deserves some comment.

Well, my comment would be, will this make any difference?

I am not in the UK so it is difficult for me to know what the pre- and post-shuffle Cabinet will do differently. Are there any interesting differences between the ministers who are in and those who are now out?

A cynical person might think that this reshuffle is just a pre-election gambit to make the Conservative Party suddenly look "fresh" and "relevant" instead of staid and unpopular, and that this is style over substance.

Is there anything to be said for that opinion?

 

[The Don]

Well, my comment would be, will this make any difference?

I am not in the UK so it is difficult for me to know what the pre- and post-shuffle Cabinet will do differently. Are there any interesting differences between the ministers who are in and those who are now out?

A cynical person might think that this reshuffle is just a pre-election gambit to make the Conservative Party suddenly look "fresh" and "relevant" instead of staid and unpopular, and that this is style over substance.

Is there anything to be said for that opinion?

It's a view that has been mentioned in the press. The outgoing cabinet has been referred to as being "Pale, male and stale".

The new cabinet is said to be more Eurosceptic (which may be a nod to Conservative UKIP defectors) but whether or not there will be any material changes to policy is another matter entirely.

 

[geni]

Well, my comment would be, will this make any difference?

Slight increase in power for anyone who wasn't shuffled.

A cynical person might think that this reshuffle is just a pre-election gambit to make the Conservative Party suddenly look "fresh" and "relevant" instead of staid and unpopular, and that this is style over substance.

Is there anything to be said for that opinion?

Pretty much. Its questionable if there is enough time until the election for any of the new people to get up to speed on their new departments.

Another posibility is that the conservatives are trying to prepare for the eventuality of losing. Get some young people in so you have more options with cabinet experience when you get back into power.

 

[angrysoba]

Thanks for the responses. Clegg seems to think that the reshuffle means that "headbangers" have joined the coalition:

The "headbangers" in the Conservative party have won an internal battle after David Cameron signalled the "death knell" for moderate Tories by ending the frontbench careers of ministers such as Kenneth Clarke in this week's reshuffle, Nick Clegg has said.

In some of his most aggressive comments about his coalition partners, the Liberal Democrat leader said the attorney general, Dominic Grieve, was sacked to allow the Tories to line up with "tyrants" such as Vladimir Putin in opposing the European convention on human rights.

The deputy prime minister laughed off the demotion of Michael Gove as he accused the former education secretary of creating a "destructive relationship" with teachers.

I wonder if this is something that works out well for both coalition partners: the Tories have urgently got to win back their grassroots supporters from UKIP, while the Lib Dems have desperately got to look like they are against the Tories to win their grassroots supporters from everybody else.

Then if the two parties get enough votes they can perhaps form another coalition and agree to all the things they campaigned against.

However, if this conspiracy theory of mine is true it is interesting that they have booted out the stale pale males (to paraphrase The Don) such as Ken Clarke who are actually fairly liberal and gone the diversity route by selecting lots of women and a guy with a beard when some of them have quite extreme views (in a UK context).

For example, Priti Patel vociferously favours the death penalty:



Fortunately she's been put in the Treasury Department and not been made Lord (Lady?) Chancellor.