Monday, October 06, 2008

Cabinet/Government Shuffle Undercard: Guardian


Courtesy of the Guardian here's the soft shoe shuffle undercard. Apart from the Caroline Flint demotion there is something similar for Ivan Lewis MP who slides across to International Development.

These are the departures in full and I'm not quite sure how Tom Harris managed to corner the market in coverage considering some of the others headed for the back benches:

Margaret Hodge (temporarily leaving Government on compassionate grounds of family illness and will return to Government in the spring)
Kim Howells
Lord Jones of Birmingham
Lord Rooker
Malcolm Wicks
Parmjit Dhanda
Tom Harris
Anne McGuire
Meg Munn
James Plaskitt
Derek Twigg
Baroness Crawley
Liz Blackman
Alison Seabeck

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Any idea why Flint has been demoted? Seemed an odd move as she was widely tipped for a promotion.

Chris Paul said...

Flint was moved sideways really, rather than demoted. Just has a little less cabinet access. With Mandy and Margy coming in and Kelly and Browne going out there wasn't much scope to promote any young guns ... particularly if Flint's friends in the cabinet were left alone.

Insofar as plotting went though CF was widely thought to be highly involved. Brown has decided not to sack any of the suspects, but I've no doubt CF will be as disappointed as HB is relieved.

Barnacle Bill said...

I see the majority of the curry house plotters got their rewards from our glorious unelected Leader though CP.

Chris Paul said...

I think I said that! All of them survived if not prospered in or around the cabinet. This is as it should be of course. You cannot do a government of LP unity and purge a particular tendancy. That's progress for you.