Theresa May’s cabinet reshuffle proves she’s her own woman

THERE are almost four years until Theresa May has to fight a general election — and she is  determined to run her own  government between now and then.

After a reshuffle which, in the words of one minister, was “a total clear out of No10 and the Cameroons”, no one can accuse her of just being the fag end of the Cameron era.

May is showing that she is her own woman, with her own agenda.

Cameron talked about “spreading privilege”. May says  she wants the country to work for everyone not just the  privileged few.

In this reshuffle, she hasn’t bothered to disguise who her friends are and, just as importantly, who are her enemies. She was “wintery but courteous” when she sacked people, I’m told.

It is a brave Prime Minister who sacks more ministers than her majority. Some of those  she chopped are already contemplating their response. But others accept that she had to do it.

“She couldn’t have us Cameroons leaning over her shoulder saying, ‘That’s not how we used to do  it’”, says one victim of the purge.

May has made one concession, though. To prove that there won’t be backsliding on Brexit, she has put three Outers in charge of it.

But other than that she has moved to remake the government in her own image.

“She’s gone right on Europe and one nation on domestic policy” is how one minister puts it.

But this means there will be lots of different views round the Cabinet table, which will  “either lead to Cabinet government or massive in-fighting”, as one Tory predicted.

May is no respecter of reputations, as this reshuffle showed. Mark Harper, the chief whip who served under her as a junior minister, could have expected a promotion — especially as he let the whips’ office give her leadership bid crucial support.

Instead, he finds himself heading to the backbenches.

“She forms strong opinions of people she comes across when working in government. She is not sentimental in that respect,” one May backer tells me.

But there is too much talent on the backbenches now.

Theresa May and Michael Gove clashed repeatedly in Cabinet under David Cameron.

They are both very different politicians. But, as even his Tory critics acknowledge, Gove is an effective departmental minister.

Keeping him on would have shown that May was prepared to let bygones be bygones. Instead, she sacked him.

May hasn’t decided to take advantage of the chaos in the Labour party by calling an election. But the mess the opposition is in has allowed her to carry out a more sweeping change of personnel than you’d expect with such a small Commons majority.

Labour isn’t in any position to capitalise if May finds it hard to get all Tory MPs to turn up, all the time.

Opinion among the Cabinet about the reshuffle is divided. “Quite a lot of bruised people on the backbenches, with a small majority. I am not entirely sure it is wise”, warns one Secretary of State.

In the short term, though, the May approach will work. Her Cabinet makes the Tories look far less like the party of the rich and as even one public schoolboy Tory MP admits, “the posh boys stuff always dragged us down electorally.”  Expect her to enjoy a summer-long political honeymoon.

May’s mission for the Tories, to do everything they can to help working families on low incomes, is the right one.

Now, she needs to make sure that her government lives up to its promise.

Focus Fight  On Ideology

THE terrorist attack in Nice is a reminder of the threat we face from Islamist terrorism.

Senior figures in government have long believed one of the things that has prevented a mass casualty attack here in recent years is that it is almost impossible to get hold of assault weapons in Britain.

But events in France are a chilling reminder that terrorists don’t need Kalashnikovs to kill slews of innocent people.

Having been Home Secretary for six years, May is as prepared as any new Prime Minister ever has been to deal with terrorism.

But now that May is Prime Minister, she must focus on combating the ideology that spawns these attacks.

Ultimately, the best way to stop terrorism is to confront and defeat the ideology that leads to people being determined to kill as many innocent civilians as possible.

—THIS Labour leadership election is a make or break moment for the party.

If Jeremy Corbyn wins again, then Labour is finished as a serious political force. A split in the party will be inevitable.

But even if Angela Eagle or Owen Smith can defeat Corbyn, Labour’s problems won’t be over.

As one Labour MP complained to me this week, there are two parties even within the mainstream of Labour – London Labour and northern Labour.

The EU referendum revealed how differently the party’s two heartland areas think.

This divide over immigration isn’t going away anytime soon and could end up splitting the party whatever happens with Corbyn.

—ANDREW Bridgen was one of the first Tory MPs to declare publicly that he wanted David Cameron ousted as party leader.

So, MPs were watching to see how this arch rebel would respond to Theresa May taking over.

In the Commons Tea Room this week, Bridgen was joking about when he would send his letter in demanding a vote of no confidence in May’s leadership.

But loyalist Therese Coffey didn’t see the funny side of this banter and told him, in no uncertain terms, to pipe down.

Westeros at Westminster

“GOT Whitehall turf war written all over it and between three of the biggest egos in politics”, declared one former Downing Street aide when they saw Theresa May’s appointment of the three Brexiteers.

Boris Johnson as Foreign Secretary, David Davis as Secretary of State for Leaving the EU and Liam Fox as International Trade Secretary are all involved in implementing Brexit.

Johnson is the one occupying the great office of state.

But Whitehall insiders expect it to be Davis who deals with the nitty gritty of the renegotiation. I understand the Brexit department has already made clear that it wants two ministers of state to help prepare for the exit talks. But how the Foreign

Office will take to being cut out of the biggest negotiation in decades remains to be seen.

Adding spice to all this is that the third man in the Brexit triumvirate, Liam Fox, has famously strained relations with Davis.

The pair ran against each other for the Tory leadership in 2005 and there’s no love lost between them.

Fox is also no fan of Boris, regarding him as a rather frivolous figure.

These three, though, will need to work seamlessly together if Brexit is to work.

Boycott in running for elusive honour

ONE of the few Whitehall battles that Theresa May has lost in recent years was her attempt to get her cricketing hero Geoffrey Boycott a knighthood.  But now she’s in No10, there’s confidence that the Yorkshire and England opening batsman, left, is about to leave the corridor of uncertainty and receive his gong.