May must wield the knife if she is to survive

A Cabinet reshuffle didn’t save Macmillan, but it is the PM’s best hope of regaining the initiative

Prime ministers in trouble, or who think they are, traditionally hold a reshuffle. Most famously, after a haemorrhage of support to the supposedly moribund Liberal Party in 1962, and realising he was out of touch with public opinion, Harold Macmillan sacked a third of his cabinet in order to present a fresh face to the electorate. It became known, in an unfortunate analogy with Hitler’s purge of the

Sturmabteilung in 1934, as “The Night of the Long Knives”.

It didn’t work: Macmillan was no more in touch with the country after it than before. There is nothing new under the sun, and he was finished by an outbreak of sleaze in the government when the Profumo affair erupted in the spring of 1963. His excuse for not having imagined that his flamboyant minister for war might have had carnal knowledge of a call-girl and then not been entirely open about it was “I don’t go out much among young people.” (Jack Profumo was then 48.)

Mrs May’s own brand of otherworldliness is part of her undoing. Of impeccable character, brought up in a vicarage and happily married, she seems to have been slow to realise that among her colleagues in the Conservative Party are some philanderers, perverts, liars, incompetents, cheats and swindlers.

As a result, she has acquired a reputation as a poor judge of character: not just of some she has appointed to her Cabinet, but of those from whom she takes advice.

The catastrophic election campaign, from which she has yet to recover, was a consequence of poor advice. Misjudgments about the Cabinet continue to damage her, with two ministers sent off in shame in as many weeks, and others with accusations of sleaze or incompetence.

Macmillan’s reshuffle may not have saved him, but his tactic is about the only option Mrs May has left if she wishes to prolong her rule. It is not just that a big reshuffle (which senior backbenchers and party grandees have urged her to have ever since the summer recess) would allow her to remove the under-performers, inadequates and downright failures, and start afresh: it would also bring matters to a head in her party. Either her MPs would have to get behind her new team, or they would have to decide to get rid of her. Either way, the air would be cleared: but from her point of view, the tactic might even work.

It would be invidious to name names: but, like Macmillan, she could remove a third of her Cabinet without harming the welfare of the nation. Given her unreliable judgment, she should act only after consulting people outside her narrow circle of friends about who in the middle ranks of the parliamentary party or on the back benches are genuinely men and women of promise, intellect and probity. There are wise old heads in both Houses who would be only too pleased to give her advice, and she should seek – and take – it.

She must overcome her fear of putting people on the back benches who can plot against her, and of putting some with minds of their own in the Cabinet. Matters could scarcely be worse than they are already, and her riposte to anyone who makes mischief once sacked should be to remind them of how their own failings led to their losing office. If she can brazen such a situation out and establish a new, more able administration, she will find her authority boosted overnight.

The people she chooses must, above all, be campaigners. The sense of drift in the party is appalling, as it concentrates on issues of personal survival, score-settling and infighting. Labour is, in policy and personnel, weak and profoundly short of credibility; the Government just lacks the political will to take them apart. Brexit is vital, but should not suffocate every other political initiative. The Conservatives urgently need ministers with the imagination and gumption to show what they stand for.

However, Mrs May can hardly reshuffle now, with the Budget just 10 days away, whether she wants to move the Chancellor or not. The right time would be directly after the Christmas holidays, preferably not preceded by a torrent of leaks.

Of course, even if perfectly timed and wide-ranging, a reshuffle may misfire if, despite all the warnings, she fails to promote on the basis of talent but operates instead on the tried and failed principle of not leaving her comfort zone. It would be her last throw of the dice, but she may not realise how little she has left to lose. If she is not prepared to make it, she might as well pack up now.

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