Steerpike Steerpike

How Danny Finkelstein botched the reshuffle

Word reaches Mr Steerpike that Times columnist Danny Finkelstein played a decisive role in the reshuffle. As is widely known, Danny speaks to George Osborne regularly and those inside Whitehall know that what he says (or writes) today you can normally expect Osborne to say or do tomorrow. So when he started explaining to Newsnight viewers the rationale for moving Iain Duncan Smith out of the DWP it became clear what Downing St was thinking. IDS, said the Fink,

“has reached the point where he has tried to introduced the reforms and it might be a different person you want to implement the reforms. So you would change Welfare Secretary at this point without necessarily changing the policies.”

Would you now? This enraged those around IDS, who said that their boss was being nudged out of the DWP by the Treasury on live television.

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