It is policies that matter, not the trivial reshuffle
AS A political obsessive I admit that I am – ahem – unusual. When it’s reshuffle day I sit by the TV with my phone on Twitter, grabbing every bit of gossip. And as a political obsessive I thought Monday was inept and disappointing. Having marched us all the way to the top of the hill with claims that this was going to be a game-changer, it turned out to be a dull, almost pointless piece of political theatre.
But here’s the thing. The vast majority of people aren’t political obsessives. Most people are normal with normal lives, normal interests – and to be blunt a normal sense of what actually matters in life.
That means that the identity of the Secretary Of State For Shuffling Bits Of Paper Backwards And Forwards And Then Throwing Them In The Bin is a matter of supreme indifference to almost everyone. Can you name even half a dozen Cabinet ministers? Beyond Theresa May and Boris, then possibly Amber Rudd and Philip Hammond (and that’s pushing it), I doubt it very much.
But it’s those of us who can, not the vast majority who can’t, who have the real problem. Because politics isn’t really about names and the Westminster village games that people like me pay attention to.
I’ll argue to my dying day that politics is central to our lives and wellbeing and that we must never take it and our democracy for granted. But the politics that matters is about real life. It’s about schools, hospitals, welfare, crime and what we see around us every day.
WHETHER it’s David Gauke (he’s just been reshuffled to another job) or Esther McVey (she’s just taken his job) who is in charge of the Department of Work and Pensions certainly matters because different ministers have different priorities. But far more important is how those priorities are set by the Government overall and what impact they have.
That’s why the brouhaha over Monday’s botched reshuffle is in the end irrelevant. Because once you move down from the PM and the Chancellor, who really do set the agenda, it is politics, not individual politicians, that matter. What’s vital now is that