All 3 entries tagged Cabinet

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July 02, 2007

Anything you can do…

David Cameron plays poker with his cabinet I see your Sir John Stevens and raise you Dame Pauline Neville-Jones!

[EDIT] That cheeky Nick Robinson has used the same title for his blog. Great minds…

[EDIT 2] Ooh… he’s lucky. He posted one whole minute before me.

: 02 Jul 2007 17:32 | Tags: Cabinet David Cameron Gordon Brown Politics Reshuffle | Comments (1) | Close comments | Report a problem

June 28, 2007

Further rumblings through the Cabinet

A couple of points.

Newsnight have just used a picture of Tessa Jowell to represent Harriet Harman. I admit it’s hard to tell the difference, but they could have done better than that.

And Shaun Woodward has the worst job in the new Cabinet. Not only does he have the minefield of Northern Ireland to deal with, he won’t even get paid for it. Not that he needs the cash anyway.

: 28 Jun 2007 22:40 | Tags: Cabinet Government Politics | Comments (0) | Close comments | Report a problem

Gordon's First Cabinet

My view on Gordon’s Cabinet members, as they’re announced.

Job	Person	Thoughts
Chancellor	Alistair Darling	A shoo-in for the role, he’ll be a safe pair of hands, friendly to the Chancellor.
Foreign Secretary	David Miliband	A bit of a surprise. It’ll be spun as giving the rising star one of the great ‘offices of state’, but you only have to look at the low profile of Margaret Beckett in the past year to see he’s being slightly sidelined from Gordon’s priorities.
Home Secretary	Jacqui Smith	The big surprise. The former Chief Whip gets a massive promotion. The first female Home Secretary and her gender may have played a big part in the decision. She’s not run a department before, so not sure what Brown’s up to here.
Health Secretary	Alan Johnson	A poisoned chalice, but at least he’ll be more popular with the public – and probably health professionals – than Patricia Hewitt
Education Secretary	Ed Balls	Gordon Brown’s “representative on Earth”. Not a great surprise, but presumably a step on the ladder to Chancellor.
Universities, Skills and Innovation	John Denham	A return for the able former minister who resigned over Iraq. I’m not convinced that splitting Universities from the Education Department was a good idea.
Environment	Hilary Benn	He might have hoped for something better than this if he’d done better in the Deputy Leadership campaign. Well-liked, but should have done better.
Business and Enterprise	John Hutton	Essentially the Department of Trade and Industry. A safe, but ultimately quite dull, pair of hands.
Communities	Hazel Blears	The ‘chipmunk’ is popular in Conservative circles, simply because she’s such a liability. Personally, I can’t stand her, so this fairly insignificant role is fine by me.
Transport	Ruth Kelly	The Opus Dei member can’t cause much damage from here. Low-key.
Treasury	Andy Burnham	A second Treasury role in the Cabinet. Another rising star.
Work and Pensions & Wales	Peter Hain	Lucky to still be in the Cabinet after a poor performance in the Deputy Leadership campaign, and a general sense of incompetence whenever he’s on TV.
Northern Ireland	Shaun Woodward	A major surprise. A big jump to go from Minister for Digital Switchover to Secretary of State for N.I. A chequered past – there’ll be plenty of headlines about the former Tory.
Culture, Media and Sport	James Purnell	No surprise at all, really. He’s worked in the department before and is a rising star.
International Development	Douglas Alexander	Good friends with David Miliband, who he’ll have to work with at the Foreign Office. Perhaps he could have claimed a bigger department, but he’s also the party’s general election coordinator (in his spare time!)
Defence & Scotland	Des Browne	Perhaps the only bit of continuity in Gordon’s cabinet. Not sure if the armed forces will be pleased or not!
Justice	Jack Straw	Jack loves his constitutional reform, and he’ll get to manage it from here.
Chief Whip	Geoff Hoon	An interesting return for Geoff Buffoon. An important enforcer role within government – he probably won’t be turning up on the chat shows.
Commons Leader	Harriet Harman	Giving her three jobs is a strange decision, but it means that her salary will come from the Government, not the Labour Party, which might be significant given their financial woes. I assume she won’t be trusted with House of Lords reform (you can bet she’d cock it up) so Jack Straw will probably take this bit of the role with him.
Cabinet Office	Ed Miliband	Well-regarded Brownite, likely to take charge of Gordon’s special cross-government projects.
Lords Leader	Baroness Ashton	Never heard of her.
Attorney General	Baroness Scotland	Or her.

Waiting nervously to hear their fate…
Yvette Cooper, John Denham, Tessa Jowell

12:20 Blair steals the limelight after all
Tony’s been busy. As well as resigning as an MP, he’s found time to talk to the police again about the Cash for Honours inquiry.

11:54 The winner takes ~~it all~~ little
An anonymous contributor to Iain Dale’s blog makes a good point: “It strikes me that it may be better to lose a labour deputy leadership campaign than it is to win it.”

11:37 Lords-a-Leaping
Traditionally there’s a couple of Lords in the Cabinet. Who will they be? I wouldn’t be surprised if at least one of them wasn’t a Labour card-carrier. Incidentally, Peter Hain apparently keeps the Wales brief. Lucky them. Not.

11:34 Tessa
Tessa Jowell will – according to the BBC – remain in government, but not in the cabinet. Will Gordon give her a role managing the Olympics or casinos, or move her elsewhere?

11:30 Jobs for the Boys?
As a footnote, does Gordon Brown’s cabinet send out a message about his relationship with women? He seems to have put his male friends (and potential rivals) in some of the big jobs very easily, and the women (with the possible exception of Home Sec) seem to be filling in the gaps a bit.

: 28 Jun 2007 11:23 | Tags: Cabinet Gordon Brown Government Politics | Comments (2) | Close comments | Report a problem