This reshuffle amounts to the action of a prime minister confronted by an almighty mess – and hurriedly seeking to seize that moment for his own and his government’s ends.<\/p>\n
This is about as big a reshuffle as you could imagine, short of replacing the chancellor of the exchequer.<\/p>\n
Earlier, Downing Street made clear Rachel Reeves wasn’t going – a move to calm the markets – but it hinted at the breadth and depth of the reshuffle to come.<\/p>\n
“Wide ranging” was how it was described to me by a government insider at lunchtime.<\/p>\n
Drip by drip, appointments were fed out through the afternoon.<\/p>\n
By teatime, it had met the definition of that word.<\/p>\n
Two new occupiers of two of the big offices of state: a new home secretary and a new foreign secretary.<\/p>\n
And, for the first time, the three big offices of state below prime minister – home secretary, foreign secretary and chancellor – all occupied by women.<\/p>\n
Of course, all of this was prompted by the personal foul-up and foibles of the former deputy prime minister, a nightmarish start to a week Sir Keir Starmer had billed as marking the start of “phase two” of his government, focused on delivery.<\/p>\n
Angela Rayner is a big political character, a huge personality in Westminster.<\/p>\n
The prime minister could have simply found a replacement for her as deputy prime minister and housing secretary, but instead, he has recast his government in a far bigger way.<\/p>\n
Recasting a government is an exercise in authority and jeopardy \u2013 and that’s just for the prime minister.<\/p>\n
For the individuals involved – with ambitions met or punctured – the overlooked, demoted or sacked almost always outnumber the elevated, smiling and promoted.<\/p>\n
Hence that jeopardy for Number 10.<\/p>\n
Get them right and a reshuffle on this scale can be noticed \u2013 and re-energise a government.<\/p>\n
Get them wrong or do them too often and a government’s progress can become jolty and piecemeal, and the backbench battalion of the disgruntled grows larger.<\/p>\n
From the prime minister’s perspective, a political battle looms.<\/p>\n
After a shaky first year in office, buffeted by shrivelling approval ratings, he confronts a buoyant Reform UK.<\/p>\n
Sir Keir has concluded going big was the best option.<\/p>\n
He knows he needs to be seen to be delivering and quickly – and he has to hope this new team can do it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This reshuffle amounts to the action of a prime minister confronted by an almighty mess – and hurriedly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5737,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[156,111,139,69,437],"class_list":["post-5736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5736\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}