David Cameron's Reshuffle

David Cameron’s reshuffle has already caused tensions to rise in the political world, mainly over the way he has dealt with the transport secretary. Justine Greening, the transport secretary until yesterday, was very vocal about her opposition to the idea of a third runway at Heathrow. In recent weeks there has been rumours circulating that the government may be preparing to U-turn on this policy, previously the coalition agreement had ruled out any third runway at Heathrow. Greening’s constituency of Putney is under the flight path of Heathrow, there is stern opposition to a third runway. Although Greening received a large majority in 2010, she would be threatened by Labour if she was the transport secretary to push through a third runway proposal. She was replaced as by Patrick McLoughlin, MP for Derbyshire Dales in the Midlands. He would not lose any votes over a third runway. Boris Johnson reacted immediately to the change saying “There can only be one reason to move her – and that is to expand Heathrow Airport.” Boris is vehemently opposed to any expansion of Heathrow Airport, he favours a totally new, four runway, airport that would be built to the east of London. Although the government is totally denying any change of policy, most people are expecting a U-turn within the coming months.

Probably the second most controversial move is that of Jeremy Hunt, before yesterday Hunt was the – highly unpopular – secretary for Culture, Media and Sport. Despite his complete and total mishandling of the BSkyB bid and the view in the public that he is corrupt, he managed to receive a promotion – most people thought he was going to be fired altogether! Or at least demoted! Instead he has managed to be promoted to Secretary for Health, now his job is selling the extremely unpopular Health and Social Care Bill to the public. Remember this bill has around a 10% approval rating. Considering that Hunt is probably the second least popular minister in the government (the least popular is probably the former health secretary Andrew lansley) it would seem a terrible idea to ask him to sell the least popular bill in the history of the country (most bills only really become unpopular when they’re enacted).

Most of the rest of the changes are not controversial, the reshuffle sees the return of David Laws, a centre-right Liberal Democrat. It also sees the demotion of Ken Clarke from Justice Secretary to Minister without portfolio; he is replaced by Chris Grayling who is seen as hard-line Conservative on the issues over imprisonment and justice. Originally Iain Duncan Smith was offered the job of Justice Secretary but refused, choosing to stay as Work and Pensions secretary. Baroness Warsi was replaced by Grant Shapps as chairperson of the Conservative Party.

As was expected, there was no change in the top positions with the home, foreign and defence secretaries all keeping their jobs as well as all liberal democrats and the chancellor George Osborne.

Will this new team turn the country around? We’ll have to wait and see, unlikely as the government has promised no policy change.