To Play the King

I decided to run with a theme on this. House of Cards fans will no doubt appreciate it, or at least I hope they will. Anyway, the results dripped through on Wednesday and so I can give them to you more or less in full. Here goes. 

Justice Secretary: Ken Clarke is out at last. In comes Chris Grayling in the first of the right wingers to enter the Cabinet since the reshuffle. He might give a good account of himself at Justice, although how sad IDS will be to lose him at the DWP we will see. Ken, meanwhile, has been given a role in economic affairs, so he's back to what he knows. 

Health Secretary: Out with Andrew Lansley and in with Jeremy Hunt (cue sharp intake of breath). So far another speculation proven right. This should now be Hunt's chance to atone for his bad record over BSkyB at Culture. Sad for Andrew Lansley, who is now Leader of the House. I don't see him making any kind of comeback from this now. 

Environment Secretary: Caroline Spelman is in the long grass as Owen Paterson comes up from the Northern Ireland Office, to be replaced by Theresa Villiers, former Minister of State at Transport. Environment is a good bet for a long run to Foreign Secretary (probably past the DfID, but more of that in a moment).  He seems competent, so we could get something to run with green-wise until 2015. He may well want more later, but he has until 2015 to see if he deserves it. 

Culture Secretary: With Jeremy Hunt at Health, Maria Miller was appointed (albeit with raised eyebrows) to the Culture Department. There have already been raised voices over her voting record, in similar tones to the appointment of Chris Grayling. To the nay-sayers I respond thus: I don't care about previous voting records, especially when certain votes contained large numbers of Labour MP's. She needs to prove that she's competent. 

International Development: We wave goodbye to Andrew Mitchell and welcome Justine Greening, formerly Transport Secretary. Justine, you may well remember, being responsible for tacking the controversial issue of a third Heathrow runway. She has already promised a tougher stance on aid and abut time, given that we pledged 0.7% of GDP to go overseas in the next few years. Andrew Mtichell gets Chief Whip, replacing Patrick McLoughlin who gets...

Transport Secretary: Patrick is already hitting the ground running with Boris sounding off on Government policy over the proposed Heathrow expansion. He is also now responsible for overseeing HS2, the highly necessary (although no less controversial) rail provision we need. 

Party Chairman: One of the first revelations was that Sayeeda Warsi is finally out, to be replaced by Grant Shapps, former Housing Minister at DWP. She goes to the Foreign Office to bother William Hague while Grant is left to begin the mammoth task of putting together the election strategy for 2015 and rallying the beleaguered association network across the UK. His role is now crucial as we begin to look at the endgame in the run-up to the next general election. He will need to be continually active and hopefully be involved in major decisions, as it will be his task to present policy in an electoral context. 

All in all a strong-looking team. None of the Great Offices have been moved and Vince is still at Business. Surisingly David Laws was given a semi-formal role at Education but attached to a roving brief. It's good to have him back though, we need another set of brains in Whitehall.