Reshuffle fever
It’s been a pretty exciting day, all told, and I’m quite pleased with the new Cabinet. I wanted to flag up Unity’s comment over at Dave Osler’s place, which I thought made some interesting points about the impact of the changes on the Tories:
The Justice/Home Secretary combo of Straw and Smith is an effective downgrade in importance for the Home Office [...] That effectively pushes Basher Davis down the pecking order in terms of profile, which ain’t going to go down well with him.
Splitting education leaves Cameron with the option of giving Two Brains half his old job or moving him on, right after the grammar school spat, which makes it difficult to move him without there being some negative briefing as payback for pissing off the Thatcherite faithful, unless he gets a plum job, which’ll piss the Thatcherites off even more.
Does the shadow cabinet have to mirror the cabinet exactly?
The Tories were against splitting the Home Office if I remember rightly, so keeping the two posts together in one would display some kind of logic.
Did you see Question Time last night? Quite impressed by Yvette Cooper’s performance.
Shadow Cabinet doesn’t have to mirror the Cabinet, no - it’s up to the leader to decide what he does.
Didn’t see QT - telly on the blink - but have heard from non-Labour people at work that she was good.
Dave-id could stick to the old roles and UPGRADE his men.