Good news in Downing Street: Theresa May has survived the weekend. After the Shapps plot failed to take off, the new consensus is that the beleaguered Prime Minister should re-assert her authority on an increasingly unruly Tory party by reshuffling her Cabinet. Had the speech gone better, there was talk that she could have done this last week. The Sunday Times reports that a shuffle is now likely to occur after the European Council meeting in two weeks’ time.
If May does oblige, there are calls from within the party for her to use a reshuffle to promote younger talent – and to sack the Foreign Secretary. The latter still looks unlikely. Although the Prime Minister is doing little to cool speculation about Boris Johnson’s job prospects – ‘it has never been my style to hide from a challenge and I’m not going to start now’ – firing him is risky.
Johnson’s outspoken behaviour in recent weeks (sharing his vision for Brexit with several national papers) is only likely to increase if he is outside government with little reason to behave.
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