Rishi Sunak’s reshuffle won’t save him

Winston Churchill had a stamp on his office desk reading ‘Action this day’ with which he marked documents demanding immediate attention from his officials and ministers. It seems that Rishi Sunak has exchanged this stamp for one reading ‘Inaction this day’ to judge by his government’s paralysed inactivity in the face of pressing events.

His answer to the multiple strikes, walkouts and disputes plaguing Britain is, erm, carrying out a mini-ministerial reshuffle of the same tired old faces. Such a massive irrelevancy is unlikely to impress public opinion or do anything  to close the Tories’ 20 point lag behind Labour in the opinion polls.

Nor are many of the appointments so far exactly ‘new’. Grant Shapps, who becomes the first Secretary of State for the ‘Department for Energy Security and Net Zero’, has been in the cabinet for years; while Greg Hands, who replaces the sacked Nadhim Zahawi as party chairman, is, as his name implies, a safe pair of hands who won’t set the Thames alight.