RESHUFFLE FAILS TO REIGNITE CABINET AS RISHI CREATES A DEPARTMENT FOR HEADACHES

ELAST week’s Cabinet reshuffle couldn’t even muster the razzmatazz of a summer school fete. I had been hoping for a bit of excitement to put a spring back into the party’s step and while I knew Rishi would err on the side of caution, I thought he might let off a few fireworks, maybe invite one or two old favourites back to add experience and wisdom as we head towards an election, and make thrusting newbies junior ministers, to pack a punch on the front bench.

There was nothing of the sort.

You could imagine the tumbleweed passing by on the Ten O’Clock News. I could only conclude that invisibility was the new measure of political success – and on that benchmark the reshuffle was a resounding triumph.

Perhaps Rishi, right, had decided policy, not personality, was to be the focus, but politics needs personalities, as much to sell policies as to create them.

Good policy also needs politicians to have a firm grasp of their brief. If not, power flows inevitably to the civil servants who do. And this has been a growing problem over recent times as ministers and prime ministers have come and gone.

Rishi’s arrival has certainly brought calm and stability, and I was hoping some of his new team who were doing well, but who’d only been in place for a few months, would have stayed to ensure they could deliver.

However, they haven’t and four new departments were created, which will bring new and unnecessary headaches. I mention this as someone who became Secretary of State for the Department of Work and Pensions after another new department was created... the Department of Exiting the EU.

I was left without key officials for many months as they were sucked into a new department in order to get it going.

I fear that setting up a new energy department will also do just that, causing delays and generating the space for a civil service takeover while politicians get a handle on their new brief and department.

With only a year to the general election, the three priorities for the Government are: deliver, deliver, deliver. They mustn’t do anything to take their attention away from that.

The country needs stability. Rishi has provided that so far but I fear his reshuffle has created more instability with new departments and the merry-go-round of ministers.