How to advise Lord North, or Heath, or Thatcher, or Johnson

A new volume of essays puts special advisers in historical context, and suggests the Cabinet has been marginalised by a succession of over-mighty PMs.

Time for a Coffey break

The recent bias in Downing Street against putting the Work and Pensions Secretary up for press conferences and big media shows is inexplicable.

WATCH: ‘I am not worried about Javid taking my job,’ insists Raab

“You have to look at who’s doing the talking up,” says the Foreign Secretary, when asked about rumours regarding a possible Cabinet reshuffle.

WATCH: I wasn’t the lockdown leak culprit, says Gove

He doesn’t know who leaked an announcement of a second national lockdown, he told Andrew Marr.

Profile: Liz Truss, Perky promoter of free trade with Japan – and, like Johnson, a disruptor

With her odd mixture of indiscretion and obedience, her contempt for liberal groupthink and love of freedom, she in many ways a useful ally.

Graham Brady: The Government must account properly for the full cost of lockdowns, restrictions – and Covid-19 itself

Publishing this information may lead to a more realistic understanding from the public of the real costs of the current strategy.

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.