CABINET RESHUFFLE JANUARY 2018 Craig is a former Press Secretary to the Prime Minister who was called into Theresa May’s Downing Street in the aftermath of the 2017 General Election result. He worked on the Conservative election campaign and was previously special adviser at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Before that he spent eight years as a political journalist, most recently as Chief Political Correspondent at The Sun. At Edelman he has special responsibility for clients in the digital economy, gambling and sporting and leisure sectors. He also leads the company’s political media engagement strategy. Craig Woodhouse Director
OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS Out of adversity comes opportunity, or so said Benjamin Franklin. And it is only 21 days since Theresa May suffered her last bit of adversity in a disastrous 2017 when close ally and long-term friend Damian Green was forced to quit as First Secretary of State after lying about porn that was found on his computer years ago. He was the third Cabinet minister forced out in less than two months, following Michael Fallon (caught up in the sexual harassment scandal) and Priti Patel (sacked for running freelance foreign policy with secret meetings in Israel) on to the scrapheap. But rather than a one-out-one-in replacement that followed the first two departures, the PM has used Green’s exit as an opportunity to refresh her ministerial team for the year ahead – a crucial 12 months with the Brexit clock ticking. Some in Westminster have already criticised this reshuffle as a missed opportunity, with a lack of changes at the very top showing that May’s authority remains damaged by last year’s election. And it wasn’t without adversity of its own, getting off to a botched start when Chris Grayling was mistakenly announced as Conservative Party Chairman; triggering a row over the appointment of pro-life MP Maria Caulfield as Tory vice chair for women; and leading to the resignation of Justine Greening after she refused to swap Education for Work and Pensions. But beyond the snap verdicts of the Twittersphere it is important to look at what the Prime Minister was trying to achieve with these changes, and what they represent.
The first thing is BREXIT STABILITY. By leaving her most senior Cabinet ministers in their posts, May has avoided disrupting the very complex task of extricating Britain from the EU. While she may not always see eye-to-eye with Philip Hammond, agree with how Boris Johnson goes about things, or be happy with David Davis’ public utterances, sacking them would have created needless instability. And with time running out, it would have made little sense to get new ministers up to speed. The second is May’s DOMESTIC AGENDA. While Brexit is paramount, the PM is determined that her premiership will not be completely defined by it and is still driven by the vision she set out on the steps of Downing Street of ‘building a country that works for everyone’. Adding housing to Communities Secretary Sajid Javid’s title, and handing responsibility for social care to the Department of Health, may be criticised as tinkering – but they are big issues the PM wants to tackle and these moves are designed to prove it. Greening’s departure as Education Secretary clears the way for a replacement in Damian Hinds who May will expect to be more closely aligned to her vision for schools. And thirdly there is BUILDING A PIPELINE OF TALENT. To refresh the Cabinet – and make it look more like modern Britain – you need a strong team of junior ministers who are ready to step up. Changes in the lower ministerial ranks will follow tomorrow, but the PM has sent a strong signal that she wants rising stars and hard workers to get on in the party by promoting the likes of Matt Hancock and Hinds to the Cabinet, and appointing 2017-intake MPs Kemi Badenoch and Ben Bradley as Conservative Vice Chairs.
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