The Evening Standard's Paul Waugh, a man well plugged in to Tory politics, has a Tory reshuffle piece on his excellent blog. He agrees with my predictions about Maria Miller and Greg Clark, and tips Ed Vaizey to replace Peter Ainsworth at Environment. He also thinks Justine Greening, who has impressed in her Treasury job, may also be promoted to the tyop table. In addition, Waugh reckons Theresa Villiers, Peter Ainsworth, David Willetts, David Lidington and Andrew Mitchell all face the chop. I think he may be right on three out of those five.
Waugh suggests that a reshuffle could happen as early as this week, as a sign of confidence on Cameron's part. I certainly haven't heard any whispers to that effect, but my ears may now flap a little more than usual...
17 comments:
Would make sense to take the initiative away from Gordon Brown, put him on a back foot, and have the Tory front bench well established by the time the conference season kicks off..
Greg Hands should be up there providing economic/finance advice.
Is it possible to stop the rollover at the top of the page that gives me a frightening full screen visage of the Broon one? Absolute nightmare.
BTW I have tried to get Total Politics in about a dozen WH Smith's and have yet to find one.
As to the subject - hold the reshuffle until aftre the conference. There is only room for two reshuffles before the next election and the next one needs to be very finely timed!
I hope DC does a shuffle during this summer's recess, and that it is one that will take us into the election.
He has had time now to see how both those at the top and at the back behave, who is trustworthy, and who needs to be tactfully shoved either sideways or up and out (Andrew Lansley anyone?).
He also needs to beef up his Whips team.
Theresa Villiers would, sadly, be a good candidate for demotion. She regularly manages the remarkable feat of coming off second best against Ruth Kelly in the Commons and, despite having been in post for quite some time, still shows no sign of having a command of her brief. John Redwood would seem to be the best candidate to replace her, as he's strong in that area.
Unfortunately, I can imagine there would be politics involved in what that would do to the gender balance of the Conservative front bench.
Will Maria Miller be promoted purely because she is a woman? If so, what is the point of voting Conservative if all we're going to get is re-heated Blairism?
Having met a number of the Shadow Ministers recently, I am appalled at how narrowly they interpret their briefs. They seem to think that almost everything is just about fine with the way the Govt is being run at the moment and the only problem is that they are not in charge of it.
That's exactly the attitude that New Labour came to power with 10 years ago and look where it's got them.
What's needed are bold strokes. Without these no new manager in politics or business can make a different. Instead the Cameroons seem determined not to do anything that might upset somebody. That way lies failure.
Geoffrey Cox is a back bencher who would be good on the front bench, Home Department team.. Shadow Police Minister material.
I just hope John Redwood is given a front bench position. Love to see him in the treasury team. The tories will need every possible help to get us out of the mess we are in.
How Maude is kept in the shadow cabinet is quite beyond me. A total wet. Made a real mess of the Chairman's job, Has no personal charisma. You may deduct I do not like the man!
I mentioned Rikkind before. What cameron needs, as identified by many before, is a team of big hitters, Good on the media, Strong in debate.
Come on Cameron get a team who will FIGHT for the country and rid us of these wasters in government.
Surley Theresa May has to be a candidate for replacement. She's been slipping down, down, down for the last four years now.
Andrew Mitchell would not be missed.
Who are all these people? The Conservative team must be one of the lessermost opposition teams to be on the verge of government ever. They desperately need to get themselves known with the public before they get into power. Dave should concentrate on that not on meaningless reshuffles.
Paul Waugh is famous in the Lobby for taking fliers and mostly getting his stories horribly wrong. Let's see if this one is any different. I seriously doubt it~!
See the Mail on Sunday has had to apologise and pay damages to Graham Stuart MP for wrongly accusing him of "launching a foul mouthed rant against the German football team".
Oh dear! Ran very prominently on page two of the paper yesterday.
Just keep that fat old eric pickles up north!
John Redwood must be brought back, preferably, as someone else mentioned, in the treasury team. Can there be anyone Labour would fear more in that role as their fiscal irreponsibility comes home to roost?
The deciding argument appears to be the need for cover while easing Mrs Spelman out. As kevin davis reminds us, Cameron will still have time for fine-tuning before the election
Strapworld,I agree on Cox,Redwood and Maude but Rifkind would never survive the surgery to remove the fence from his backside.
Come on Iain, never mind boring Tory reshuffles. What's going on at ConHome, then? Is this (sob) the end for this great blog? I bet Dave will be chuffed to bits.
Post a Comment