David Cameron has always nurtured a deep dislike of reshuffles, and the last week won’t have helped. The result might strengthen the government; but the process was as ghastly as the Prime Minister expected. He sought to be gentlemanly about things, publicising the promoted while granting the demoted privacy. Even so, I understand, three ministers burst into tears in front of him when he was delivering the bad news. Lady Warsi was so cross about being stripped of the party chairmanship that she went home to Yorkshire and carried on negotiations from there.
Some ministers even succeeded in staying put when the Prime Minister would have liked them to move. On Monday afternoon, he asked Iain Duncan Smith to consider switching jobs. His work on welfare reform was done, IDS was told, and his views on rehabilitation could be put to good use in the Justice Department; though as a former leader, he was assured, the choice was his.
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