Number 10 still shuffling around on policy

“They’re just rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic,” one SNP source cheekily texted after hearing about the latest episode in Number 10’s Union Unit soap opera.

The comment came after Westminster exploded with reports on Wednesday night that the Union Unit, formerly headed by Luke Graham and Dominic Cummings’s protégé, Oliver Lewis, was being shut down.

The Press and Journal reported two weeks ago that the unit was being folded into the Cabinet Office.

The P&J also learned Michael Gove’s Union policy implementation committee was getting a couple of new faces and a new name, the Union Cabinet committee would now also have the prime minister on board in addition to former Brexit negotiator David Frost.

The fervour that met the official confirmation of such news revealed two things – that Westminster craves a crisis and that Number 10 still hasn’t figured out the best way to approach Union policy.

There are two schools of thought among the Conservatives on how to approach the SNP.

One, embodied by Oliver Lewis, was a muscular unionism, using the aggressive tactics of Brexit.

The other approach, favoured by Gove, is to “love-bomb” Scotland, resisting the urge to scrap with the SNP.

Both approaches have been deployed in one way or another during Boris Johnson’s premiership, this latest swing of the pendulum towards Gove will more than likely be followed by a swing back, after a bad run of polls or a bad performance at the Holyrood election.

Stick or twist, Number 10 can’t seem to find a winning hand on the Union.