Ridiculous reshuffle shows again that the Tories need to find new leadership, fast
Usually my weekly newsletter to Reaction paying subscribers goes out at the end of the week. I know, I thought on Monday morning, I’ll write an extra one this week, for Tuesday, that is today, containing all the most exciting reshuffle gossip, with a run through the key appointments. Even though Team May had briefed that it would not be a root and branch affair, they had promised that their ministerial changes would refreshen the British government. There should be enough around, that Reaction readers needed to know, to warrant an extra weekly email, I thought. Going into another crucial year on Brexit, Theresa May would surely use the move onto phase two of the Brexit talks negotiated by officials to put a bit of fizz into a knackered government. That was the theory.
To that end, looking for insight, for several hours I sat in parliament sipping coffee, chatting to assorted politicians and hacks, texting and keeping up with the developments as the reshuffle unfolded. It became steadily less exciting and interesting, to the extent that by early evening I headed home feeling down. Why was this? Political journalists like to present themselves as sceptics, or even cynics, but in my experience most of us drawn to writing about it like to think that politics matters and that ideally it should be done well. In among all the reporting, occasional mischief-making and scepticism, there is among hacks usually a grudging respect for a top grade operation. No-one likes to spend their time – or not 100% of it – writing about the low-grade and the embarrassing.
This reshuffle was low-grade and embarrassing. This is not to condemn all of the appointments. Moving David Lidington to the Cabinet Office is a first rate move. Greg Clark divides opinion (not decisive enough, say critics) but I not only like that he stuck his ground and refused to be moved from his Business department post. The times down the years when I’ve dealt with him I have always found him a decent, bright and thoughtful person, loyal to his colleagues. The new party chairmanship duo – Brandon Lewis and his deputy James Cleverly – have a lot of work to do. They arrived at CCHQ with nine (nine!) vice chairs. Did they choose them? There’s a recipe for confusion and infighting with the press standing by. Still, if the chair, deputy and nine vice chairs ever get bored there are enough of them to play each other at five-a-side football.
Elsewhere, among those still at their original posts and among those on the move there are good ministers trying to do good work. Even in a government that has had it, it is still possible in individual departments for ministers to make a positive difference.
There’s a sub-plot, incidentally, that I assume others will be looking into in the curious case of Greg Clark not moving, and then Education Secretary Justine Greening walking out rather than accepting a move to the Department of Work and Pensions. The official Number 10 line in advance seems to have been, as I said, that this would not be a root and branch or revenge affair. But there was robust briefing in advance against both Clark and Greening from “elsewhere” it is said. May could not stand Greening, it was said by May’s friends, which seems to have been true. But May found Clark useless, because he had, it was said, messed up the “Industrial Strategy” designed by former May advisor Nick Timothy, sorry designed by Theresa May. Of course. After the utter shambles Team May in its pomp made of the government’s relations with business I suggest Clark’s determination since May’s botched election to not do stupid stuff that annoyed business counts as progress.
What was going on here with the aggressive rubbishing of those two ministers before reshuffle day? It is all very curious. The result of the talk that May would get tough was simply an enraged Clark who defied May and a Greening who walked to the backbenches, from where she will now be a dangerous presence. The person or persons talking up May’s determination to kick some butt forgot that in politics other people – colleagues – have agency, free will even, if pushed. They seem to have been emboldened by the attacks and the Prime Minister was defied on several occasions, making her look not Prime Ministerial. Thus May was weakened. The gains she made in December are, to an extent, squandered, and it will take quiet professionalism from less flashy ministers and officials to repair the damage.
Anyway, the general crapness of all this – the spectacle of a weak Prime Minister, the stupid strategies, the sense of decay, the reality of very little movement, and the lack of energy and drive the country desperately needs going into Brexit – got me down, as I said. Consequently, after dinner I sat staring at a blank screen, trying to summon up the enthusiasm to pretend that this ridiculous reshuffle merited standard analysis and explanation.
The only thing that cheered me up was watching the first three minutes and forty seconds of one of the greatest pieces of film ever made, sent to my wife over Christmas by a relative. It was Victoria Wood’s favourite TV clip, apparently, and you can see the significant influence it had on her work. The footage is from an episode of Highway, the edgier ITV rival to Songs of Praise, in 1987. It was presented by Sir Harry Secombe, with this episode set in Ipswich. For some reason the ensemble singers performing the opening number make me think of Theresa May. They sing “Who will buy?” from Oliver (after the titles until 3:40) in Ipswich’s then new shopping centre.
From there, I drifted through to watch ITV News at Ten. Oh no, they were talking about May’s reshuffle. To provide an insight into the state of public opinion, Deborah Mattinson of the pollster Britain Thinks had assembled two focus groups for ITV, with each set of voters leaning in different political directions towards one or other of the major parties. Good grief the first lot were tough on May. She had totally messed it up with the election, they said, and the government was just awful, hopeless.
At least there would be some comfort for May and Number 10 in the Tory-leaning focus group? No, hold on, that first group was the Tory-leaning group speaking! The Labour lot then came on and gave the Tories and May even more of a monstering.
That is what the Tories are up against. They are in deep, deep demographic, organisational and intellectual trouble, with Labour winning the argument about the state of the public realm and a far left leader Jeremy Corbyn posing as a Socialist Santa when he and shadow Chancellor John “Lenin” McDonnell pose a far greater threat to the UK economy than Brexit.
Against this mortal threat, the current Tory approach of patching it together continually and pretending it is tolerable leads only to events like this latest reshuffle day. They probably can go on like this, perhaps even for a dismal few years, getting worse and worse, but it risks disastrous consequences. Instead, they need among their number in the Commons to agree on a leader who can rebuild and generate enthusiasm. They need someone who can make voters sit up and notice that the Tories have chosen a fresh face capable of leading. Theresa May is in office but not in power, as the old saying goes.
UPDATE:
The reverberations from yesterday’s farce continue. Two supporters of Greg Clark get in touch. He was not asked to move, one says, but he would have considered it if May had gone through with her plan to move both him and Jeremy Hunt. Another says that Clark was left somewhat bemused by the whole thing, and hurt by the ferocity of the “shitbagging” he got from May’s friends in the press. He expected to be asked to move but the question never came. So he just stayed put. He also points out that Clark has painstakingly rebuilt government relations with vital industries such as the car industry, whose leading players had been extremely spooked by Team May’s shenanigans pre-botched election.
The appointments and firings below cabinet are now underway.
Based on the conversations I’ve had, via text and DM, the Tory parliamentary party mood is bleak and best described by one Tory Peer: “I thought I was depressed before this. Now I’m really bloody depressed.”