Tim Montgomerie is already speculating about a Tory Shadow Cabinet reshuffle, after a rather weird little snippet appeared in The Sun's Whip column yesterday. Personally I hope that David Cameron will avoid the mistakes of his three immediate predecessors who seemed to conduct reshuffles whenever they had a boring Saturday night in with the Missus. We can all play 'Fantasy Shadow Cabinets' and everyone will have a view on who should be sacked or promoted. Tim rightly tips Dominic Grieve as the most likely new entrant. He also thinks Liam Fox should be promoted as a sop to the right. I do not. This would mean that Cameron would have to sack or demote Osborne, Davis, Maude or Hague. He just isn't going to do that. Liam would be far better employed restoring the Defence portfolio to the prominence it always used to have. It is one of the top jobs and should be appreciated as such. Frequent reshuffles are destabilising and are rarely successful. Far better for people to be left in the same job for a good period to enable them to get to grips with the brief and develop real policy. They cannot do that if they move jobs every twelve months.
Friday, April 21, 2006
Why David Cameron Shouldn't Reshuffle His Pack
Tim Montgomerie is already speculating about a Tory Shadow Cabinet reshuffle, after a rather weird little snippet appeared in The Sun's Whip column yesterday. Personally I hope that David Cameron will avoid the mistakes of his three immediate predecessors who seemed to conduct reshuffles whenever they had a boring Saturday night in with the Missus. We can all play 'Fantasy Shadow Cabinets' and everyone will have a view on who should be sacked or promoted. Tim rightly tips Dominic Grieve as the most likely new entrant. He also thinks Liam Fox should be promoted as a sop to the right. I do not. This would mean that Cameron would have to sack or demote Osborne, Davis, Maude or Hague. He just isn't going to do that. Liam would be far better employed restoring the Defence portfolio to the prominence it always used to have. It is one of the top jobs and should be appreciated as such. Frequent reshuffles are destabilising and are rarely successful. Far better for people to be left in the same job for a good period to enable them to get to grips with the brief and develop real policy. They cannot do that if they move jobs every twelve months.
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9 comments:
As a non Tory I lurve dominic grieve. very easy radio voice and just comes across as so decent when ever he is on the media. Some of his stuff on civil liberties and terrorism recently has been brilliant and he send out that kind of conservative libertarianism that might actually get you votes.
send him the back benches at once!
Tend to agree that reshuffles should be kept to the minimum possible as they send out wrong signals of instability and insecurity. Also, under Blair, they have prompted furious speculation regarding appointments being 'Blairite' or 'Brownite'. So far Cameron has avoided any talk of cabals-apart from talk about his own 'Notting Hill' group; I thought at first that maybe George Osborne might harbour residual leadership ambitions but if he does, he's kept them well disguised.
A completely cold fish, though. He's a 'typical' tory, Oxford, Lawyer...everything the party needs more of if it's to prove it has changed...
Agree about Grieve - he is a little 'Bertie Woosterish' but has been quite impressive. The importnat thing is that Osborne stays at the Treasury - he is pompous, arrogant and smug and totally lacking in gravitas. Please Iain, do what you can to ensure that 'Boy' George is not demoted.
I agree with Iain 100%. It's hard enough for Shadow Cabinet members to build credibility or a public profile without swapping jobs all the time. Liam Fox for the sake of his own career actually needs to avoid becoming a sort of "great right hope" as it will only end in tears. Cameron will be the leader of the Conservatives for the next 10 or 20 years. Defence Secretary in the next Conservative government should for the time being be the limit of his ambitions, he doesn't need to become a rallying point for those nostalgic for flatline politics.
anonymous, you've obviously never met Dominic. A cold fish is the last thing you could ever describe him as
I agree there were some mistakes in job allocations, but nothing will be served by panic measures after dropping a couple of points in the polls. Can you imagine the reaction in replacing the Shadow Chancellor? "Another scalp for the Iron Chancellor!"
Sorry, but this is more hand-wringing from Tim Montgomerie. He and his fans look for any excuse to knock Cameron.
anonymous, you've obviously never met Dominic. A cold fish is the last thing you could ever describe him as
You make my point for me, Iain. He plainly comes across as a cold fish - analytical, detached, unemotional, Bertie Woosterish, as Mike Ion comments.
If you have to meet Grieve to dispel these perceptions, then there's no hope. We don't have the time to give everyone a coffee. The party needs people with warm and approachable media personas. Grieve is not remotely of that character. He may care, and care deeply, but he doesn't sound as though he does. It that respect, he is 'cold'.
Inclined to think a reshuffle somewhere he never speaks to the Press would be a good idea for Francis Maude. Everytime he appears in public he trashes his own party. You get the impression he doesn't vote Conservative himself! Unbelievable to discover he actually is a Conservative MP - he does the Party no favours at all, and if what is needed is a "warm and approachable media persona", then he is not that person.
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