A question of timing

Over at Three Line Whip, Rob Winnett points out that David Cameron really needs to decide what to do about Caroline Spellman before the Haltemprice & Howden by-election. If Spellman is forced out once David Davis has been returned to Parliament, it will be hard for Cameron not to take the opportunity to bring Davis back to the top table.

If Cameron does decide that he needs to ask Spellman for her resignation, then there is a simple mini-reshuffle available to him: move Eric Pickles to party chairman and Paul Goodman up to shadow Hazel Blears.  Part of the appeal of this is that making Pickles, a folksy Yorshireman, party chairman and one of the main faces of the Tory party would help to restore some of the balance to the Tory top team that was lost with Davis’s decision to go off and fight a by-election.