Downing St releases snap of Cabinet after PM’S brutal reshuffle
SOMETIME around 500BC the legendary Chinese general Sun Tzu wrote The Art of War, the original manual on strategy, a magnus opus which still resonates to this day.
Perhaps its most famous piece of advice was:
“Keep your friends close but your enemies closer.”
These words of wisdom also proved to be the guiding principle behind Boris Johnson’s ministerial reshuffle.
So out went the dead wood and the expendable: Gavin Williamson out as Education Secretary; Robert Buckland out of Justice; and the scandal-prone Robert Jenrick gone from Communities and Housing.
In came unquestioning Boris loyalists – Anne-marie Trevelyan to International Trade, Nadine Dorries to Culture and Nadhim Zahawi to Education.
Significantly, none of the new blood in the Cabinet is discussed as a future leader – and the fate of any leadership rivals was perhaps telling given the way each one was left weakened.
Michael Gove was moved from his powerful puppet master position in the Cabinet Office to Levelling Up.
And Dominic Raab was humiliated by losing the Foreign Secretary post and going to the graveyard of political ambition – the Ministry of Justice.
Mr Johnson has let it be known he wanted to be in office for longer than Margaret Thatcher’s 11 years.
And so this was a reshuffle less about preparing for the next election and more about sending a message that he plans to stay in Downing Street for a long time.