Pickles & May: The Biggest Cabinet Growers

Rachel Sylvester has an intriguing article (£) in today's Times called 'Growers & Shrinkers'. She analyses various Cabinet members and analyses whether they have grown in office.

There’s a new parlour game at Westminster as MPs and civil servants assess this first phase. It’s called Growers and Shrinkers. A senior Tory says: “Before we got into power none of us knew who would be any good at government. There are ministers who have grown into the job and others who have shrunk in office.”

She reckons that Cameron has grown in office while Clegg has shrunk. Osborne is a grower and Cable is a shrinker.

But her article is beset by one problem - those who she doesn't mention at all. Why no mention of Michael Gove? Surely not because of his Times affiliations! And most important of all, why no mentions of Eric Pickles and Theresa May, in my book the two most impressive Cabinet Ministers by far in the coalition government.

Eric Pickles has gripped his department in a way no other Cabinet Minister has, and achieved huge amounts in the first 100 days. Theresa May has also shown great initiative at the Home Office and is supported by a first class team of ministers. Surely she and Eric deserve recognition in Rachel's article.

UPDATE 11.34: That'll teach me to click on page 2 of the article, where Gove and May are indeed mentioned. Apologies!

The Death of the ASBO?

I think Theresa May is second only to Eric Pickles in hitting the ground running. I can't say I agree with all the myriad of initiatives that have emerged from the Home Office, but the level of activity displayed by her and her team is impressive.

Yesterday she signalled the death knell for ASBOs by announcing a review into their operation and effectiveness. The fact that more than half of those who get an ASBO have then gone on to serve custodial sentences should tell us all we need to know. However, her speech was disappointing in one sense in that it seemed to say, well, they haven't worked, national government can't really do anything, it's for local communities to decide what measures are best for them. I can see the logic, but in practical terms whatever a local community or police force do together is inevitably going to cost money which won't be forthcoming.

I suppose it's the logical extension of a localism agenda, to devolve decisions on what to do about anti social behaviour to a local level, but there are resource consequences which have to be recognised.

Jack Straw Gives it the Business

I've just been flicking through Private Eye and happened upon this little snippet...

Every Thursday in the Commons, at 11.30am, Tory frontbencher Theresa May -
she of the snazzy shoes - asks the Leader of the House of Commons, Jack Straw,
about the coming week's agenda. The exact formula May uses is: "I wonder if the
Leader of the House can give me the business." Give me the business? It's a
brave woman who says that to raffish Jack!

What can it all mean?