Rishi Sunak’s reshuffle weakens his government

Rishi Sunak thinks David Cameron will be a round peg in a round hole in the Foreign Office. I think (as I have written elsewhere) that he is right. If foreign secretaries could be bought at Harrods, Mr Cameron is the model discerning customers would prefer. But the underlying problem, which provoked this reshuffle, is at the Home Office. This was a personal one, because Suella Braverman, though she did not breach government policy, had defied the wishes of the Prime Minister about what her article in the Times should say. It is also, which matters much more, a national and political problem, because anti-Semitism, Islamism, immigration policy and confidence in the police are all in contention. It is on Home Office issues that public fear and anxiety centre, and on which Conservative votes, especially among the less well-off, depend. Mr Sunak is lucky that Mrs Braverman’s loopy letter of denunciation damages her cause.