‘I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and I intend to spend it’. That was how George W Bush put it after winning his second presidential election in 2004. He’s possibly not the best model for good governance, but the sentiment is worth pondering as Theresa May rolls on relentlessly towards victory.
Mrs May will wake on June 9 with money in the bank, politically if not fiscally. She’ll have crushed and possibly split apart the Labour Party, secured her party another five years in office and stamped and stamped and stamped her personal authority on the Conservative Party.
With every day that passes, there are more whispers that she’ll use that victory to do a little more stamping still, eliminating Cabinet ministers seen to have underperformed or dissented. For all the spectacle of George Osborne’s evisceration, the last May ministry had some continuity from the Cameron era. Next month, she’ll have the scope to remake the Government entirely. But even if she does, will it be enough? What about the Whitehall machine her ministerial team operates? Are the Civil Service and the departments of state it runs fit for Mrs May’s purposes? I wonder.
By and large, I’m wary of restructuring Whitehall departments.
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