This is a welcome shake-up of No10

Boris Johnson’s appointment of Steve Barclay as chief of staff is a sensible move that appears to signal a critical shift in the Government’s style and substance. A Brexiteer Cabinet minister and firm free-market conservative, he should hopefully be able to grip the broken machinery of Downing Street.

The decision to combine this role with the Cabinet Office to create a new Office of the Prime Minister makes a lot of sense: MPs will surely appreciate the commitment to return to Cabinet government.

Mr Barclay’s appointment is promising for another reason: it might signal, at last, a return to core Tory values after the profligacy of the Covid years and the drift towards green social-democracy of recent months. Mr Barclay is a dry, and an ally of Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor, hence the move suggests a necessary rapprochement between the PM and the Treasury. Mr Barclay was chief secretary to the Treasury under Mr Sunak, and the two men clearly get on well.

It must also be hoped that Barclay will be able to push through greater changes to the government bureaucracy, and force the civil service to reform some of its more absurd practices. A war on waste and comprehensive review of all expenditure is desperately needed, a project that Mr Barclay would be well-suited to.

Further shake-ups will be required to the operation of No10, of course, and it is essential that Tory policy be recentered as quickly as possible towards core free-market and other conservative principles. Taxes must fall, not rise, and spending must be controlled. We need genuine deregulation. The woke agenda needs to be combated much more fiercely.

The current approach to Partygate has failed, which will require a fresh, more contrite attitude, especially if and when new revelations emerge. The world may be about to be buffeted by conflict in Ukraine, and while the UK won’t be directly involved it is vital that the government machinery is fully functional if this were to happen. The Iran question needs to be addressed, especially given reports that the country might be on the verge of a popular uprising.

More broadly, Mr Johnson’s appointment of a new director of communications is an opportunity to reset the message. This has got to be clear and consistent, expressing a straightforward conservative world view.

Central to everything is the economy. The challenge here is three-fold: inflation is out of control, growth is too low and the green agenda too costly. Britain has become trapped in a cycle of statist failure. First, the Government intervenes in a way that distorts the market; then it steps in again to tax and spend its way out of the problem, robbing voters and crashing the economy. Rinse and repeat.

Wise and successful Tory governments have broken this cycle with pro-market reform; foolish ones have attempted to outbid the Left. Brexit was rooted in principles such as selfgovernance and freedom, but these were always understood to have real-world implications – greater sovereignty would allow Britain to chart a new journey as an enterprising, global economy, pushing through major changes to bolster productivity, encourage research and science, and improve the private sector’s incentives.

This weekend’s appointments provide Mr Johnson with what will most likely be his last major opportunity to change course. The Covid era, it increasingly feels, is coming to an end – or at least we have started to learn to live with the virus. Let us hope this substantial rearrangement of No10 will give the Tory party the better management and sense of direction it so desperately needs.