Reshuffle postponed to foster loyalty after Gray report

BORIS JOHNSON has delayed plans for a summer reshuffle of his Cabinet as he deals with a Tory backbench revolt and seeks to keep ministers on side.

The Prime Minister had told colleagues he was planning a shake-up after the May local elections, which saw Labour and the Liberal Democrats take scores of council seats off the Tories.

However, those plans are on pause given the publication of Sue Gray’s internal report on partygate last month and fresh calls for Mr Johnson’s resignation from around a dozen Tory MPS.

One of the Prime Minister’s inner circle said that July was now the earliest a reshuffle would take place.

“We are focused on the what, not the who,” the source said. “We are only just sweeping the debris off the deck,” they added about the scandal of Covid lawbreaking in government.

Holding a reshuffle imminently would risk alienating sacked Cabinet ministers who could carry a political threat if they turned on Mr Johnson and went public with criticism.

The attraction of future ministerial jobs for would-be rebels could also help Downing Street navigate choppy political waters over the coming weeks, offering an incentive to wavering backbenchers to remain on side.

There is a belief among Tory rebels and Downing Street figures that a leadership vote, which would be triggered by 54 no-confidence letters from Tory MPS, is looking inevitable before Parliament breaks for summer in late July.

A leadership vote as early as next week is even possible, though the exact number of letters submitted to the 1922 Committee remains unknown, creating much uncertainty.

The Prime Minister yesterday struck a note of contrition during an interview with Mumsnet, suggesting he considered resigning after Ms Gray’s report.

Mr Johnson said: “It felt to me like a work event. I was there for a very short time in the Cabinet Office at my desk and, you know, I was very, very surprised and taken aback to get a fixed penalty notice but, of course, I paid it.

“I’m still here because we’ve got huge pressures economically, we’ve got to get on, you know, we’ve got the biggest war in Europe for 80 years, and we’ve got a massive agenda to deliver which I was elected to deliver.

“I’ve thought about all these questions a lot, as you can imagine, and I just cannot see how, actually, it’d be responsible right now, given everything that is going on, simply to abandon the project on which I embarked.”

The Prime Minister said the partygate saga had been a “totally miserable” experience for those in government, defending his decision to attend leaving events for colleagues during lockdown by saying it was important to “keep morale high”.

He also joked that the birthday party gathering on June 2020, for which he was fined for breaking Covid laws, was “miserable” and that he had not eaten any cake.