The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Rishi reshuffles, Truss talks and a trigger warning for Shakespeare’s Globe

issue 11 February 2023

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Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, rearranged the deck chairs. The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy was broken up, and Grant Shapps, the Business Secretary, was put in charge of a new department: Energy Security and Net Zero. Kemi Badenoch, the Trade Secretary, added business to her portfolio, as the new Secretary of State for Business and Trade. Michelle Donelan, the Culture Secretary, became Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology. The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport had its ‘Digital’ lopped off and was put under Lucy Frazer. The new Conservative party chairman is Greg Hands, reckoned a safe pair. The King told Royal Mail not to sell stamps with his image on them until it had used up those left over from Queen Elizabeth’s reign.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine visited Britain to address parliament. Liz Truss, once prime minister, told Spectator TV in an interview that neither she nor her chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng had been informed at the time of their disastrous mini-Budget of the ‘tinderbox’ of pension-fund Liability Driven Investments and their perverse effects.

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