OPINION
Keir Starmer reshuffled his cabinet last week (Image: Getty)
Keir Starmer’s Cabinet reshuffle was a pointless musical chairs which served only to highlight the hopelessness of his position as PM and to hand power to the civil service. Unfortunately
for him the music’s already stopped and the public, along with the overwhelming majority of Labour MPs, have already decided they want rid of him.
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Now, there are good reasons to have reshuffles: to bring in new talent, to get rid of underperforming ministers, or to move a successful minister to another department to work their magic somewhere else.
I’ve been involved in a number of government reshuffles over the years – faring better in some than others – but I was always able to understand what the prime minister was trying to achieve.
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If anyone can tell me the point of this one, other than to replace his disgraced deputy and act as diversionary tactics for Starmer, I’d be grateful if they would let me know.
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It certainly wasn’t for the good of the country. Take David Lammy, who was demoted from Foreign Secretary to Justice Secretary at the same time as being promoted to Deputy PM. How can anyone make sense of that? And if he was doing such a great job as Foreign Secretary (spoiler: he wasn’t) then why not let him continue with the job?
Maybe Starmer was just looking for someone of the same calibre as Angela “no-brainer” Rayner to take over as Deputy PM and Lammy’s past record on Mastermind marked him out as the ideal choice.
The other reason this extensive reshuffle was senseless is because it takes time for ministers to get to know their briefs and departments. The first year for any minister is spent meeting stakeholders, experts, the civil service team and getting to grips with major issues.
The most productive year for any minister is therefore their second year in the job. So to move a huge swathe of ministers from one department to another after one year is absurd and it also means the civil service will now be the ones mainly in
charge of running the government.
For example, when I was Secretary of State for Department of Work and Pensions, I oversaw 100,000 staff, 750 job centres, all the benefit and pension schemes and a budget of ￡200 billion, supporting 20 million people at any one time. It inevitably takes time to effectively get across all of that.
The irony here is that the worst performers in the Cabinet (which is some feat) all retained their jobs: Ed Miliband, who’s singlehandedly making us all poorer with his extremist climate change policies; Rachel Reeves, who is crashing the economy; Lord Hermer whose obsession with human rights means this government will never solve the illegal immigration crisis, and Starmer himself, the most unpopular Prime Minister in history.
Surely it is only a matter of time before Labour MPs shuffle Starmer out of 10 Downing Street and this latest reshuffle has simply made the jockeying for his position even more frenetic.
Read more: Keir Starmer humiliated after trying and failing to sack Ed Miliband
Read more: Starmer is better off without Rayner - but he forgot to sack a bigger muppet
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Catherine, the Princess of Wales, is a beautiful woman, there's no two ways about it. But I can’t be alone in preferring her earlier deep-brown chestnut locks rather than her new “bronde” colour, an amalgamation of “brunette” and “blonde”. To my eye it doesn't seem to sit right and takes away from her natural beauty rather than enhancing it. I hope she goes back to the Kate we all know and love.
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The autobiography of Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the British genius who invented the World Wide Web and gave it away for free, comes out today and I can’t wait to read it.
He's been rightly feted and hailed for his creation, but it has been the tech giants of Silicon Valley who have made billions from his creation. He says he doesn't regret giving it away believing what he created was a platform of democracy.
As for AI, Sir Tim says if we are about to make something smarter than ourselves, the wise thing to do would be to build it in a sandbox where it can play, but not affect the real world, and where it does not have the power to argue for its own improvement, or to be given more resources. We would do well to take heed.
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I was delighted to discover that built-in home bars are all the rage, not least because when Phil and I bought our home there was a mirrored one in the corner which we have kept. To be fair, I’ve always loved whipping up a cocktail behind ours, but I reckon the home bar has taken on a newly fashionable status because going out is now so expensive.
Maybe Rachel Reeves and her tax grabs have made staying in the new going out. It is disastrous for the hospitality industry, though, which is on its knees.
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I have to say I am surprised that Nigel Farage has welcomed Nadine Dorries into Reform UK with open arms. Everyone knows that Nadine is obsessed with Boris Johnson. So whenever Nigel Farage – rightly, in my view – criticises Boris for his liberal belief on immigration, which opened up our borders to far too many people coming into the country, he can expect Nadine to be using her new platform to defend Boris, thereby criticising Nigel.
I suspect it won’t end well, but there will be plenty of fireworks to watch along the way.
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“Angie” Rayner (as Beth Rigby from Sky News calls her friend) might have gone but an almighty battle is about to commence for her replacement as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party.
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Ed Miliband humiliated as even Keir Starmer turns on net zero madness
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Apparently up for the job is that fan of the St George flag Emily Thornberry, who would live up to her name and prove to be a real thorn in Starmer’s side after she was unceremoniously discarded as the government’s Attorney General to make way for Starmer’s buddy Lord Hermer.
Louise Haigh, the disgraced ex-Transport Minister, and left-wingers Dawn Butler and Dr Rosena Allin-Khan are also limbering up for a tilt at the job.
I wonder if Rayner might stand again to regain the position from which she resigned? That would certainly put the cat amongst the pigeons.
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