Presenting ConservativeHome’s online Party Conference fringe events

We are bringing our ever-popular series of interviews and debates to your screen – and they’ll be open to everyone, including non-Party members, for free.

Javid is Chancellor. Tugendhat, Foreign Secretary. May, Home Secretary. Introducing the Alternative Cabinet.

The real one is widely and correctly dismissed as weak.  So we’ve had a go at assembling a stronger team.  Here is the result.

Iain Dale: How many Cabinet members would make your fantasy Cabinet? I count five. And it gets worse…

Plus: incompetence, resignations, non-resignations, reputations, my holiday, Any Questions and Finkelstein’s book.

James Frayne: Our national political conversation is unrepresentative. Metro London is heard loud and clear. The provinces, scarcely at all.

They don’t talk about politics in daily life; don’t write to local or national newspapers; most importantly, they’re not politically active online.

The Education Secretary must lead school openings in less than a month. Which is why his Department needs new leadership now.

Johnson will almost certainly decide to tough it out. But he will have a big problem if school returns prove tricky.

Iain Dale: Butler and the police, and why Williamson will be feeling anxious this week

Plus: There is speculation of a Cabinet reshuffle soon, but I hear otherwise…

Our latest Cabinet Survey. Sunak stable at the top, but Hancock’s ratings are in poor health.

Meanwhile the Prime Minister continues to slide down the rankings, falling into the 40s for the first time since taking office.

Howard Flight: Parkinson’s Law revisited

The NHS employs 1.75 million people and is too monolithic. The number of civil servants has risen to 460,000. This is territory which the Chancellor needs to examine in detail.

Iain Dale: My end of term report on the Cabinet. Part Two.

By the way, it is a travesty that the Chief Secretary to the Treasury and Leader of the House aren’t full members.

Iain Dale: My end of term school report on the Cabinet. Grades below. Open with care.

Johnson, Sunak, Patel – and more. Do not write below the dotted line. Do not use corrective fluid. Unauthorised materials will be confiscated.

A year of Johnson as Prime Minister. As with Thatcher and Blair, his enemies can’t get the measure of him.

We’ve learned nothing at all about his outlook but quite a lot about his capacities during the last tumultuous twelve months.

Cummings makes the weather as a hard rain falls on Sedwill

Three cheers for three reforms: of the civil service, of Ministers and of one that this Government tends to avoid – of public services.

Sooner or later, Conservative MPs will have to remaster the vanishing art of Just Saying No

An election that saw them returned to say yes to Brexit and boosterism leaves Johnson vulnerable to events and reality.

The Government has held 86 Coronavirus press conferences. How many has Coffey fronted? None. Why?

If the Prime Minister doesn’t have confidence in his most senior Ministers, it’s impossible to see how anyone else can.

Johnson falls 20 points to his lowest-ever Prime Ministerial score in our latest Cabinet League Table

Overall ratings are down but the Chancellor sidesteps this trend and posts another stellar score.