Prime Ministers have a natural inclination to avoid the disruption that re-organising the centre of government would bring. But to govern effectively, change has become necessary.
It’s tough at the top: there are white hairs on the PM’s temples which were not there when he took over in October last year.
The 32 Secretaries of State and Ministers attending Rishi Sunak’s new Cabinet.
Peerages for Ben Houchen, Kulveer Ranger and Shaun Bailey. Knighthoods for Jacob Rees-Mogg and Simon Clarke. Priti Patel becomes a Dame.
When a minister comes under attack from the parliamentary lobby, petty allegations are treated as monstrous crimes.
On Johnson: “I know he would agree that the mandate my party earned in 2019 is not the sole property of any individual”
“We simply cannot afford to be a low-growth country where the Government takes an increasing share of our national wealth.”
Civil servants drew up a scheme to transfer a lot of responsibility to the Civil Service. The new team may regret signing up to it.
From this afternoon’s announcement of the winner to their facing off against Starmer at PMQs on Wednesday, how Johnson’s successor takes office.
Unlike his predecessor, the Prime Minister is not spending his final weeks in office rushing out announcements to give future historians something nice to say.
The Northern Ireland Secretary adds that he wouldn’t “question her independence and determination to deliver a full and complete report.”
Tory MPs felt no great urge to leap to the PM’s defence, but also showed no desire to defenestrate him, and instead drifted off to lunch.
The Labour Leader insists a “perfectly legal takeway” is incomparable to a “catalogue of criminality” in Downing Street.
“I had no knowledge of those subsequent proceedings because I simply wasn’t there,” he says, apologising to cleaning and security staff.
Reforms that work with the grain of the key constitutional principles of ministerial and collective responsibility are those most likely to strengthen executive government in practice.