There may be a reshuffle today. Theresa May has a poor hand and it seems to be rather rich in jokers. What will she do?
Let’s hope that Michael Gove stays in place so that he has to take things forward in this unfrozen moment.
Many of the changes will be in the junior minister ranks – Prime Ministers have to keep things moving to keep the troops on their toes and so that the hope of advancement is always a possibility even for the dullest of back-benchers. Most of the changes in junior ministerial postings will become apparent tomorrow and won’t make much news but I’ll do a round-up of changes to Defra if there are any.
There must be a strong chance that George Eustice will be moved which might be a shame. He knows his stuff, is a long-standing Defra minister (since May 2015) and would be an asset to any Secretary of State facing the challenge of Brexit and constructing a new farming policy.
Will Therese Coffey be put out of her misery and moved to a job more suited to her skills? She has been a poor minister (since July 2016) and we have reached the position where any change might be better than the dead hand that stifles biodiversity policy at the moment.
We’ll see. What happens today and tomorrow may be more significant to the future of our countryside that the words that Michael Gove used in addressing both Oxford farming conferences last week.
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I too would much prefer Gove where he is and for the terrible Coffey to be gone, along with Jeremy Hunt and Boris Johnson. However she will keep Johnson because she is weak and she will want to keep this enemy close and hampered by office, Hunt she may promote although many of us detest this embodiment of how poorly the Tories are really treating the NHS whist spending money on vanity projects— New Warships and HS2!
Really I would like to see the lot of them confined to the political dustbin along with Farage, all the little Englanders and right wing ne’erdo wells!