The week has been dominated by one event: the reshuffle. However, whilst this may have caused great excitement within the Westminster village, what does it really mean to the wider world and to companies and organisations regularly dealing with government?
Whilst the faces may have changed, the policies pursued by each department will largely not. This reshuffle was all about style over substance. It had nothing to do with creating a new and fresh ministerial team built for policy making and everything to do with creating a younger, softer more feminine government which David Cameron hopes will be more appealing to the electorate than the “male, pale and stale” men in suits. It is nevertheless worth remembering that this remains a male dominated government with 23% of Cabinet members female, well below the 33% target Cameron set himself before the election.
But was a reshuffle on this scale really necessary? With Labour struggling in the polls and the economy moving firmly in the Conservative’s favour, did Cameron really need to sweep away so many experienced ministers and put in their place relatively new, inexperienced MPs? He has clearly taken a gamble, and it may yet be a gamble that pays off, but it is fraught with its own risks. He has tried to slay the UKIP fox with the appointment of an overtly Eurosceptic Foreign Secretary and the dismissal of Attorney-General Dominic Grieve, widely seen as an obstacle to addressing Tory issues with the European Convention on Human Rights. But with polls taken before the reshuffle showing a significant fall in UKIP support, has he built up resentment by dismissing ministers who had hardly put a foot wrong?
The replacement of the combative Michael Gove with the more consensual Nicky Morgan signals a new approach at the Department of Education, although it is unlikely to mean new policy. Even just a handful of votes from placated parents could make a difference in marginal constituencies. Policies may remain the same, but the presentation will be very different – especially in key sectors like education and environment. Understanding the “touch points” of Nicky Morgan and Liz Truss will be critical to those with interests in their departments.
This reshuffle has then fired the starting gun for the election campaign. Parliament now goes into recess and all political minds will be on the Scottish Referendum and the Party Conference season where the only talk will be about May 2015. This weekend’s National Policy Forum is expected to lay the foundations for the Labour manifesto, and then it will be a race for the finishing line.
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Of course, it’s not all about Westminster. Europe, and the UK’s relationship with it, looms large on the horizon. The selection of Lord Hill as the UK’s European Commission candidate, probably the least known of all the potential candidates, surprised many – not least Lord Hill himself who had previously ruled out moving to Brussels. He’s a seasoned political operator but these are likely to be testing times as the government starts to flex its muscles on EU membership renegotiation. Jean Claude Juncker has never heard of him and the European Parliament’s President, Martin Schultz, has already threatened to veto him because of his “Eurosceptic views”.
So, a busy and fascinating week, and one that has started what is set to be one of the longest Election campaigns in living memory.