Thursday, June 28, 2007

Cabinet Making: Record Breaking Change Masters



The BBC Report is pretty definitive.

First woman Home Secretary.

Brothers in Cabinet.

Nine women, though not all full members.

Several Blairites.

First commoner as Lord Chancellor.

A Lordly US irritant dealing with the UN.

Buff as Chief Whip - excellent; given the high esteeem in which he is held in the PLP.

Des Browne the ONLY settled incumbent of 23.

Shaun Woodward shows the way open to the defector which will be popular with the hard left and the hard right alike.

The BBC give a handy Out with the Old, in with the New. Tessa keeps the Olympics. Richard Caborn specialises in Soccer. Beverley Hughes is poised for promotion. Though having said that, crises permitting this well-crafted front line, with permission to have an input, has the look of a keeper.

Let's hope Iain Dale has more joy on the Shadow Cabinet than he did on the real one.

4 comments:

jailhouselawyer said...

Still no mention of Deputy Prime Minister.

It is remarkable that the MSM has paid scant attention to Jack Straw becoming Minister of Justice and Lord Chancellor.

Chris Paul said...

Don't think there'll be a DPM. Straw and/or Harman will deputise at PMQs etc IMO.

jailhouselawyer said...

I am thinking more constitutionally, in the same way that America has a Vice President. A stand in at PMQs is no substitute for the real thing.

Don't ignore the good day to bury bad news. The media are focusing on Jacqui Smith being the first woman Home Secretary. Yes, it's newsworthy.

Jack Straw was in charge of prisons before as Home Secretary. I don't think that moving them to the Ministry of Justice and putting Jack Straw back in charge of them is indicative of change which is supposedly Brown's big message.

The other issue is that the Lord Chancellor should be a judge and not a politician.

Now Blair's corrupt lawyers, Goldsmith and Falconer are out of the way perhaps we can move forward.

There needs to be a new Prison Act and the issue of prisoners human right to vote needs to be resolved.

Chris Paul said...

Jack hasn't had prisons for five years or more. He's got the job(s) largely to fix the wider constitutional issues. The law changes for all this happened three years ago.