Bag carriers and yes people. Credit: Matt Dunham - WPA Pool/Getty Images

The idea of the Prime Minister as âfirst among equalsâ is a polite fiction â and always has been. Leaders are meant to lead. If they canât direct their deputies, theyâre done for. But Boris Johnson has gone further than any previous PM. For him and his right-hand men, âtaking back controlâ is like charity â it begins at home. The only power base allowed anywhere in Whitehall is in Downing Street. Not even the Treasury is exempt.
Hence the drama of the post-election reshuffle, back in February. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sajid Javid, was told to sack his advisors and make room for a team of Downing Street heavies. Honourably, he refused â and so he was forced out too.
The message was unambiguous: the whole Cabinet, from the Chancellor down, would have to submit to central control â or else. Henceforth, the relationship between Number 10 and every minister, no matter how senior, would be modelled on that between Matthew Corbett and Sooty.
And yet the puppet show has not gone to plan.
Last month, the chief puppeteer â Dominic Cummings â lost the battle for Downing Street. While heâd eliminated all resistance in the Cabinet room, he hadnât accounted for the upstairs flat. Big mistake.
And then thereâs the Prime Minister himself â who these days looks like a ghost at his own feast. All leaders fade away eventually, but the pace of events has accelerated his career trajectory. To sink from conquering hero to yesterdayâs man in a space of a year is going some.
Finally, and most tellingly, there are the puppets. The supposedly synchronised Cabinet is all over the place. Their individual performances range from stellar to abysmal. So, as it turns out, who you appoint to the top jobs still matters, no matter how centralised your style of government. Eight examples prove the point:
1. Rishi Sunak
Two years ago, Rishi Sunak was the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Local Government â just about the most junior of junior ministers. Now, heâs Chancellor of the Exchequer and the favourite to succeed his boss. There was never any doubting his potential, but he owes his meteoric rise to Boris Johnsonâs model of government.
Itâs an age-old trick: ensure loyalty by promoting those who havenât earned it. Appointees are indebted to their patrons; and the principle of âeasy come, easy goâ means itâs straightforward to dispense with them. Look down the list of Secretaries of State and youâll find one example after another.
With Sunak, however, the cipher turned out to be a star. Which is just as well, given events. As a competent manager and reassuring communicator, heâs implemented crisis socialism without freaking out the markets, the public or his own party.
Weâve also seen some hints of creativity. Heâll need more, though, because you canât recover from an unprecedented crisis without new ideas. His proposal for a National Infrastructure Bank is a key test. If it can raise and lend money like a real bank (instead of just being glorified government fund), we might just be able to âbuild back betterâ.
2. Dominic Raab
The idea of a politician ârising without traceâ has become a clichĂŠ, but itâs a fitting description of Raabâs CV. As Foreign Secretary (and, before that, Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union), Brexit should have been the making or breaking of him. But Brexit policy consists of two kinds of decision â the really big ones made by the Prime Minister and the excruciatingly fine detail handled by the negotiating team. Thereâs nothing much in between for the Cabinet minister.
The fact is that Raab is in the wrong job â appointed to the FCO not for what he can do, but for what he represents (i.e. the Eurosceptic Right of his party). For the Cabinetâs tough guy itâs a mismatch â like putting Chuck Norris in charge of a Swiss finishing school. Raab needs a big spending department to run; and though that would technically be a demotion, it would be the best thing that could happen to him.
3. Priti Patel
The Home Secretary was also appointed to make a point. A hardliner on both Brexit and immigration, her elevation from the backbenches to one of the great offices of state was a clear signal of the governmentâs intention to get Brexit done and control our borders.
Of course, she was only on the backbenches because sheâd resigned from the Cabinet in 2017 after unauthorised meetings with the Israeli government came to light. Few people expected her to return to office so soon, or indeed at all; but salvaging a capsized career is another way in which Downing Street can ensure the loyalty of its appointees.
Since her return, Patel has again fallen foul of the ministerial code â this time in regard to bullying allegations. Despite the official enquiry into the matter, she escaped unscathed. Two things protected her: first, the self-defeating nastiness of the Left â which loves to target women and people of colour who dare to have the âwrongâ opinions; and, second, the fact that Patel, despite her obvious limitations, is stubbornly pushing forward on the immigration reforms that were promised in the Conservative manifesto.
Of course, itâs one thing to tighten border control in theory, another to maintain it in practice. As with all Home Secretaries, Patelâs fate ultimately depends on upholding the law as it stands.
4. Matt Hancock
The Secretary of State for Health gives every impression of being another rapid riser. In fact, he had five years in junior ministerial roles before making it to Cabinet â which is an eternity these days. This year, heâs had to draw on every scrap of his experience.
Itâs unclear how Hancock will be judged by history (and the inevitable public enquiries) â because the record is so mixed. Will he be remembered for the various test-and-trace fiascos or the triumphs of vaccine policy? How does one balance the failure to protect our care homes from Covid with the fact that the NHS has not been overwhelmed by the greatest challenge in its history?
Secretary of State for Health and Social Care is a big job at the best of times. But in 2020 it grew too big for any one incumbent. A Government that understood the importance of ministers would have carved out special Covid-related roles at Cabinet level (a test-and-trace minister, for instance) â leaving the Health Secretary to focus exclusively on the core issues.
Churchillâs wartime Cabinet was reshaped around the demands of the war effort â and something similar should have happened in this war too.
5. Michael Gove
Michael Gove is by far the most experienced member of the Cabinet. Apart from a brief period of exile following the Brexit referendum, heâs been a senior figure since 2010 â serving three Prime Ministers.
Paradoxically, heâs survived for so long by embracing unpopularity. Heâs the political equivalent of a sin-eater:Â the outcasts who were once paid to take on the sins of others through the consumption of a ritual meal. Of late, these meals have been substantial â with Gove sent out to defend the Government through its imperfect improvisations of lockdown policy.
Allied to his knowledge of the inner workings of the Whitehall machine, Gove has become indispensable. And yet his talents could be better deployed. He is, at heart, a radical â willing to pursue reform in the face of entrenched opposition. As soon as the Covid crisis is over, he should be put in charge of solving another problem thatâs been left unsolved for the last decade or more: housing.
6. Robert Jenrick
This would be a good point at which to examine the record of the latest Secretary of State who hasnât solved the housing crisis. Robert Jenrick is the sixth Cabinet minister in this role since 2010. Some have been real talents, others not so much, and none has been left in post long enough to sort out Britainâs single greatest structural problem.
Indeed, none has been allowed to state the obvious, which is that rampant house price inflation is a bad thing. If the Conservatives want to rescue Generation Rent and revive their vision of a property-owning democracy, then house prices must fall relative to wages.
A generic placeman such as Jenrick is incapable of true reform. His atrocious planning white paper maintains the fiction that the planning system is to blame for the housing crisis â instead of the land bankers. If Boris is serious about building back better then he needs to set Gove loose on the vested interests standing in the way.
7. Gavin Williamson
Oh dear, what can one say? Any politician capable of a media performance like this one has no business being a minister, let alone a Cabinet minister.
In any case, Williamson is unlikely to survive the next reshuffle â not after the results debacle earlier this year. He wasnât to blame for the closure of schools during lockdown and the cancellation of exams. However, he did oversee the grade allocation algorithm that caused such upset and fury.
His department made the classic mistake of targeting one objective â i.e. the prevention of grade inflation â without considering the wider ramifications. In particular, the downward adjustment of grades based on the past performance not only of the pupil but also the school could not have been more contrary to the principle of levelling up. If you want to succeed as a governmentâs minister, then best not to drive a coach-and-horses through its domestic agenda.
Robert Jenrickâs housing target algorithm is a similar fiasco â and a further lesson in the foolishness of entrusting policy to mindless robots.
8. Liz Truss
Liz Truss isnât exactly my kind of conservative. Her infamous tribute to a generation of â#Uber-riding #Airbnb-ing #Deliveroo-eating #freedomfightersâ didnât just make me cringe, but evoked a soul-crushing void.
But, fairâs fair, sheâs done a decent job as Secretary of State for International Trade. Itâs still early days, but to rebuild a long-abandoned function of sovereign government (i.e. trade diplomacy) is a painstaking task that sheâs diligently got on with.
It remains to be seen what purpose this new capacity will be put to â especially when it comes to the looming trade deal with America. The fate of the British countryside hangs in the balance and I hope that Truss makes a stand for the things that matter more than the bottom line. You wouldnât want to feed chlorine chicken to those Deliveroo-eating freedom fighters, would you Liz?
Nevertheless, sheâs had a good year. While she bombed at DEFRA and as Lord Chancellor, sheâs undoubtedly found her niche. Which goes to show that getting the right people into Cabinet is only half the struggle. The other half is getting them into the right positions.
Perhaps Downing Street should stop appointing people to roles that they havenât actually asked for. Instead they should invite applications from candidates who actually want to do each job. Theyâd thus be able to prepare for the position, think about what they want to do with it and then present their case to the appropriate decision-makers.
I know, itâs a crazy idea â but it seems to work for well-run organisations.
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