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Coffee House Shots

What's behind Rishi's reshuffle?

Coffee House Shots

The Spectator

Politics, Daily News, News

4.42.2K Ratings

🗓️ 7 February 2023

⏱️ 13 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Rishi Sunak announced a reshuffle of his cabinet this morning. Among other changes, Greg Hands will become the Tory party chair, and Michelle Donelan will become the culture secretary. Why is Sunak making these changes just 18 months before an election? Will they make any real difference to how his government works? 

Max Jeffery speaks to Katy Balls and Isabel Hardman.

Produced by Max Jeffery.

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Transcript

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0:00.0

This episode is sponsored by Canacor Genuity Wealth Management, experienced wealth planners and

0:05.6

investment managers who offer unwavering support in challenging times. Visit kandilwealth.com for more

0:11.9

information.

0:17.2

Hello, I'm Oakland Coffee House shots, the spectators daily politics podcast. I'm Max Jeffrey

0:22.2

and I'm joined by Katie Booz and Isabelle Hardman. Rishi Sunak has done a mini reshuffle this morning.

0:29.2

Katie, tell us about it. Yes, so news began to break of this overnight.

0:34.8

Some of the government saying something big is happening today. It turns out that is a mini reshuffle,

0:40.7

but I think probably the largest scale part is the fact that yes, ministers are changing positions,

0:47.6

but this is part of a restructuring of Whitehall. Now, usually you would expect new departments

0:53.9

moving around Whitehall to happen, probably early on in a government term. Not something you'd do

0:59.4

18 months for an election, and it's pretty hard to, lots of officials, the civil servants would say,

1:04.6

this takes so much energy sometimes to do these revamps. I get people arguing about, you know,

1:10.0

who has what desk and what bill it can get as petty as that, that it can be quite a distraction.

1:15.7

But I think what's interesting, I mean, Rishi Sunak obviously didn't have the alternative of

1:20.2

doing at the beginning of a government term because he's only just marking 100 days.

1:24.9

And this restructuring, I think, is trying to focus it close to his priorities. So you have a new

1:30.8

department for energy security in that zero, and that's taking the E out of base. That relates

1:37.1

to the five priorities, because I think energy security, obviously we know what a big impact

1:41.6

energy is having on household bills. This is looking at that. That means that you then have

1:47.5

department for business, what's left of base, goes and meets with international trade.

1:51.9

So that's business and trade department, and that's going to be led by Kemi Badenock,

1:55.6

who was the international trade secretary. The energy department, we led by Grudge Shaps,

...

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