Monday 8th January
We are in the middle of a small news story which the networks are trying to make out to somehow be far more important than it is. Theresa May is indulging in a minor reshuffle of her Cabinet. Not because she has to – that has already happened when she lost her Defence Secretary and her Overseas Development Minister and her Deputy Prime Minister just before Christmas – but because she wants to, at last, look strong and stable. A bit of a case of locking the stable doors after the horses have bolted.
In any case, barring any last-minute surprises, she isn’t about to move Boris or Hammond or Amber Rudd or David Davis, or even Michael Gove – so it will be minor positions again.
But the trouble is that 99% of the general public couldn’t care less. They can barely name five Cabinet Ministers anyway. And this Government is so mired down in the problems of Brexit, which are as intractable as ever, that no amount of pretty window-dressing can really make a difference.
The only really interesting detail may be that she is going to formally appoint a minister for a ‘no-deal’ Brexit. Again, whether this is a serious attempt to go once more for a ‘hard’ Brexit, or just a warning to the EU that we might be prepared to do so if we don’t get what we want, is anyone’s guess. The remarkable thing is that half-way through the negotiations and still, neither we – the public, nor the EU, has any idea of what the final trading arrangements are going to be.
Mrs. May still insists that she wants a bespoke deal – the best of the Single Market without the Immigration. Which is precisely what the EU has refused to contemplate all along.
So, all this re-shuffling is just window-dressing. A distraction, a news story that no-one will remember in a week’s time. The real news will just have to wait.