Johnson’s power grab
The move on No. 11
Boris Johnson seized control of the Treasury last week in a radical reshuffle that prompted the Chancellor’s resignation. Sajid Javid opted to quit the post after being told that he would have to sack his entire team and accept in their place a new joint unit of advisers shared between No. 10 and No. 11. This, he said, was something “no self-respecting minister” could accept. Javid’s exit followed months of tension between his team and Johnson’s chief strategist Dominic Cummings. He has been replaced as Chancellor by his deputy, Rishi Sunak, 39, a former Goldman Sachs investment banker who entered the Commons five years ago.
Javid was the highest-profile casualty of a reshuffle that rewarded loyalists at the expense of dissenting voices, trimming the Cabinet from
31 to 26 attendees. Julian Smith, Andrea Leadsom and Geoffrey Cox lost their jobs as Northern Ireland Secretary, Business Secretary and Attorney General respectively. Cox’s job went to Suella Braverman, a prominent Brexiter who has criticised judges for becoming too political ( see page 22). Anne-Marie Trevelyan, a critic of wasteful aid spending, became International Development Secretary.
What the editorials said
One of the axioms of British government, said The Guardian, is that administrations are built on the PM-Chancellor relationship. Think of Thatcher-Howe, BlairBrown or Cameron-Osborne. So it’s a big deal that Javid has been forced out within two months of an election victory, and one month before what has been billed as a defining budget. It betrays “either recklessness or desperation”. Javid is the first Chancellor since Iain Macleod in 1970 not to deliver a budget.
Under normal circumstances, this would indeed be a “political catastrophe”, said The Daily Telegraph. But these aren’t normal times. No. 10 knows it can’t afford to hang about if it is to have any chance of driving through its radical, post-Brexit programme. Gordon Brown turned the Treasury into the “subtlest, strongest, most deadening force for orthodoxy in the British state” – and Javid appeared to have fallen prey to its “groupthink”. Downing Street had to reassert its authority. The reshuffle has sent a clear message that Johnson and Cummings are calling the shots, said The Economist. But it remains to be seen how pliable Sunak will be as the new head of the Treasury. The “golden boy of the 2015 intake”, with a Northern seat and a massive majority, he may prove a more powerful Chancellor than people expect.