Uk politics

Thursday

Katy Balls

Interview: New Tory vice-chair – Toff can help solve the Conservative youth problem

Ben Bradley had an inkling that his first week back at work wasn't going to be an ordinary one when he received a text at 7am on Monday. The MP for Mansfield was summoned to 10 Downing Street for 11.30am with no explanation as to why. Given that this was the day Theresa May was expected to reshuffle her Cabinet, it was an odd request for an MP who had been in Parliament for less than a year, after taking the seat from Labour in the snap election. 'I thought if it's health, I'm not sure if I want it,' Bradley jokes.

Katy Balls

Tory nerves grow over No 10’s plans for tuition fees

Theresa May's Cabinet reshuffle proved puzzling for a number of reasons – from what the point was, to why Chris Grayling was falsely announced as party chairman. However, within the Conservative party it's the movement of figures from the Department for Education that has caused the most chatter. Justine Greening left government after she was ousted as Education Secretary while universities minister Jo Johnson was shuffled to transport. As Isabel has written on Coffee House, the Johnson demotion is particularly strange given that he was midway through setting up the new Office for Students, including the legislation to go through Parliament.

Wednesday

Lloyd Evans

Cuts, queues and death dominate PMQs

Cuts, queues and death. These motifs dominated the New Year instalment of PMQs. At the end of the last episode, shortly before Christmas, there were 12,000 patients lying in ambulances in hospital car parks. Two weeks later, according to Mr Corbyn, the figure stood at 17,000. Excellent news for Mr Corbyn because it sounds as if the queue has got nearly 50 per cent longer. But has it? In fact, the 12,000 pre-Christmas patients have been treated and sent happily on their way. The new figure represents the post-Christmas blow-out casualties. But Mr Corbyn obscured this point. And he created the impression that a patient in a nice warm ambulance is in fact languishing in a torture-unit from which few emerge alive.

James Forsyth

New Year, same old PMQs

Anyone hoping that 2018 would bring an improvement in the quality of debate between Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn, or a reduction in the length of John Bercow’s interventions, would have been disappointed by today’s session. Corbyn and May traded the usual blows on the NHS. There was little in the exchanges that was enlightening. Jeremy Corbyn listed examples of people being treated in car parks, Theresa May said that the NHS had been better prepared for winter than ever before. She then tried to turn the conversation to the shortcomings of the NHS in Labour-run Wales. The rest of the session wasn’t much more enlightening either. Indeed, Justine Greening’s decision to sit up with Anna Soubry struck me as one of the more significant developments of the day.

Steerpike

Watch: Debbie Abrahams grilled on double standards over Toby Young criticism

This week, Toby Young stepped down from the Office for Students over concerns his appointment had 'become a distraction' from the 'vital work' needed. His decision came following a series of historic tweets that were described as sexist. Since then, Labour have been quick to go on the attack – asking why he was ever appointed in the first place. However, given that many supported giving Jared O'Mara – the suspended Labour MP who made a series of sexist remarks on social media – a second chance, there has been talk of hypocrisy. Happily, Andrew Neil was on hand to put this point to shadow cabinet member Debbie Abrahams on the Daily Politics: https://twitter.

Katy Balls

It’s now the Tories who don’t get the digital age

With Theresa May's reshuffle now complete, a consensus is forming that it's been a rather underwhelming rearranging of the deck chairs. All the big beasts remain in place and some junior ministers appear to have been moved from their briefs just for the sake of moving them. Matters weren't helped by a shambolic roll out which saw Chris Grayling falsely announced on Twitter as the new party chairman – and reports of disarray with ministers refusing to budge thanks to hacks tweeting the time each had spent in Downing Street. It's clear that no-one in No 10 has mastered the art of completing a reshuffle in the digital age.

Isabel Hardman

Why Virgin Trains really wanted to stop selling the Daily Mail

Is it really ‘censorship’ that Virgin Trains won’t be stocking the Daily Mail any more? An internal company memo to staff this week announced that ‘we’ve decided that this paper is not compatible with the VT brand and our beliefs’ and that staff had raised ‘considerable concern’ about the Mail’s stance on ‘issues such as immigration, LGBT rights and unemployment’. This has prompted accusations that the train company is cracking down on free speech and therefore censoring views that it doesn’t like. Is this true? Many have argued that as Virgin is a private company and not a newsagents, it has no obligation to give every newspaper a platform.

Brendan O’Neill

Britain needs a second referendum – but not on Brexit

Nigel Farage has called for a referendum on the House of Lords. Earlier this week, on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, wearing his trademark dapper hat and velvet-collared coat, Farage laid into Lord Adonis’s anti-Brexit agitation, branding him a ‘dishonest, disconnected, twisting little weasel’ — ouch! He then said that if Adonis’s antics are ‘what the House of Lords is all about’, maybe we do need a second referendum — not on Brexit, but on the Lords itself, ‘a referendum to sack the lot of them’. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Om74Me2mTNw This is the most correct and brilliant thing Farage has ever said. We do need a referendum on the Lords, and I know which side I’ll be on: for abolition.

Steerpike

Tory Toff shock

The times they are a'changing. Just last month a row broke out within the Conservative party over the winner of I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here. It wasn't so much a difference of view over who should have won but over what the party should do about the winner. The winner – Georgia 'Toff' Toffolo, who first made her name on Made in Chelsea – is a Tory supporter who kindly volunteered to utilise  her million followers for the party. Alas brains at CCHQ weren't impressed. Last month, Tory chiefs blocked Toff from becoming a poster girl for the Conservatives over concerns she’s 'too posh to win over Labour supporters'. However, the MP for Mansfield takes a different view.

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman

What the government plans to do with social care after the reshuffle

Will Jeremy Hunt’s new job title make any difference to the rather precarious state of the social care sector? Opposition parties have been accusing Theresa May of ‘window-dressing’ by changing the name of the Health department to the Department of Health and Social Care - though if this reshuffle is about window-dressing, May must never, ever consider a career in retail. Changing names does signal intentions, but it can also have no more effect on policy than a change in stationery. Hunt will be taking control of the government’s green paper on social care, which as I’ve been reporting, hasn’t been so much kicked into the long grass as chucked into a forest so that no one raises the toxic issue in the way they did in the election.

Isabel Hardman

Jo Johnson’s ministerial move is the latest in a strange reshuffle

Jo Johnson hasn’t had the best week. He’s spent most of it defending the decision to appoint Toby Young to the advisory board of the Office for Students - and was doing so yesterday afternoon, just hours before Young resigned. Now Johnson has been moved to the Transport department, and with an additional post as Minister for London. This is the latest strange move in a strange reshuffle. Johnson set up the Office for Students and had been making headlines over his confrontations with university vice chancellors over pay and free speech. He was also the minister who took the legislation setting up the new Office for Students through Parliament. There didn’t seem to be any evidence that he wanted to move or that Number 10 was disappointed by his performance.

Steerpike

Caption contest: Too many vegetables not enough meat

It's the morning after the night before and Theresa May's newly reshuffled Cabinet has just held its first meeting. Only there might not be much of a need for introductions given that the Cabinet hasn't changed all that much. Despite a brief game of musical chairs, the big beasts remain when it comes to the great offices of state. Shame the Prime Minister couldn't fit in the picture... Captions in the comments please. Update: ...

Toby Young

Toby Young: Why I’m resigning from the Office for Students

I have decided to stand down from the Office for Students. My appointment has become a distraction from its vital work of broadening access to higher education and defending academic freedom. Education is my passion and I want now to be able to get on with the work I have been doing to promote and support the free schools movement. These schools have already done a huge amount to raise standards in some of England’s most deprived areas and the next challenge is to extend those benefits to every area of educational underperformance. The caricature drawn of me in the last seven days, particularly on social media, has been unrecognisable to anyone who knows me.

Monday

James Forsyth

Theresa May’s political recovery stalls

Today’s reshuffle was meant to demonstrate Theresa May’s return to political health. But it hasn’t worked out that way. This reshuffle has been chaotic even by the standards of these things. I can’t remember an official Twitter account getting the first appointment of the day wrong before. It has also advertised the limitations to May’s authority. She has not got her own way on several appointments either because of a minister declining a move (Jeremy Hunt) or refusing to take the job they were offered (Justine Greening). The appointment of Caroline Nokes as Immigration Minister attending Cabinet is also bizarre. Before today, who thought she was the right person to design Britain’s post-Brexit immigration system?

Katy Balls

Wanted: the meaning of Theresa May’s reshuffle

On Monday morning, Theresa May's reshuffle looked as though it was shaping up to be the day of the blunt knives. Some clumsy social media use saw CCHQ falsely crown Chris Grayling as the new Conservative Party Chairman – before it was announced as Brandon Lewis. Since then, things have slowed down considerably. As the day wore on, 'the Cabinet reshuffle that wasn't' appeared a more fitting description. Despite briefings about 'dead wood' in the Cabinet, only a few ministers have changed brief – David Gauke has been appointed the new Justice Secretary and Karen Bradley Northern Ireland Secretary. What's more, it's hard to find anyone who has been unceremoniously sacked or demoted against their will.

Isabel Hardman

Reshuffles can often make matters much worse

As with most reshuffles, today’s is being viewed largely as a test of the Prime Minister’s strength. Will she move the ministers who aren’t working well in their current posts? Will she underwhelm with what she eventually manages to do? Will she accidentally appoint Chris Grayling to another job for 30 seconds? So far, that test of strength isn’t going so well, with the attention largely focusing on deleted tweets and people getting out of cars. It’s easy on reshuffle day to forget the impact that moving ministers around has on government.

Steerpike

CCHQ social media fail over new party chairman

Oh dear. The new Conservative party chairman has a job on their hands transforming CCHQ into a digitally-savvy campaign machine. So, it's safe to say, that things haven't got off to the best start for the new chairman. The CCHQ Twitter feed announced Chris Grayling as the new chairman: However, just moments later the tweet was deleted. The reason? It's not clear that Grayling is the man for the job – his rival Brandon Lewis has just walked into No 10!

Steerpike

Anne Milton’s Wikipedia edited from Parliament ahead of reshuffle

Theresa May's reshuffle is imminent. Although Cabinet's big beasts are thought to be safe, Justine Greening and Greg Clark are among those in the hot seat. As for promotion, Jeremy Hunt is tipped to be appointed First Secretary of State. If this were to happen, a new Health Secretary would be needed. There has been speculation in the media that Hunt's two likely successors are Dr Philip Lee and Anne Milton. Milton is a former nurse, working as for the NHS for 25 years. So, surely, complete coincidence that Milton's Wikipedia page has been edited 'anonymously' from Parliament this morning. The change? Clarifying Milton's husband's former role as a director of Virgin Healthcare. https://twitter.com/parliamentedits/status/950300917517168640 Watch this space...

Steerpike

Andrea Leadsom tempts fate

It's reshuffle day – and the ministers thought to be in the danger zone include Justine Greening, Greg Clark, Patrick McLoughlin and Andrea Leadsom. So, with that in mind, one has to admire the decision by Leadsom to write an article for today's Times' Red Box on her priorities as Leader of the House of Commons for 2018. 'Since the general election I’ve been overseeing the preparation of further bills which we will bring forward over the coming 12 months. In 2018 it will be parliament that supports the most exciting advances our country is making. We will back the development of electric vehicles and the growth of the UK’s space flight sector, as well as investment of billions in infrastructure to support the extraordinary tech of the future.