Reshuffle: new Tory generation takes reins

The re-shaping of Lord Liverpool’s top ministerial team has been completed with the naming of a new Chancellor of the Exchequer, only just past the age of 40.

Frederick Robinson, President of the Board of Trade since 1818, has replaced Nicholas Vansittart, who has been in charge at the Treasury for more than a decade.

This means that in the space of scarcely 12 months all three Great Offices of State have changed hands, passing to much younger ministers who have risen during or even after the Napoleonic Wars.

First to go was Lord Sidmouth, replaced by Robert Peel (now 35) at the Home Office, then George Canning (52) took the place of Lord Castlereagh {the Marquess of Londonderry) after the foreign secretary’s suicide last August.

Peel, Robinson and Canning are now well-placed to take the Tory leadership о when Lord Liverpool steps down as prime minister. Apart from the Lord Chancellor (the Earl of Eldon), he is now the longest-serving member of the cabinet, prime minister since 1812.

The new chancellor is believed to want to cut taxes, but he may yet have to address the future of the protectionist Corn Laws which he steered through parliament as a junior minister in 1815. These remain unpopular because they have inflated bread prices in the UK.