The carnival is over for the Notting Hill set

It is the Sunday after the reshuffle before. Today’s papers are brimming with post reshuffle stories; and not of the kind that Downing Street will like. The Mail on Sunday reveals that Philip Hammond demanded an assurance that he wouldn’t just be keeping the seat warm for George Osborne at the Foreign Office. While the Sunday Times reports on how Owen Paterson and Liam Fox plan to ‘rough up’ the Prime Minister over Europe.

The animosity of the right towards Cameron is, perhaps, to be expected. But one of the most striking things about the reshuffle is that it has severed the emotional bonds between Cameron and the modernisers who propelled him to power. After Cameron’s brutal treatment of Michael Gove, it’ll never again be glad confident morning in Notting Hill.

By showing that he puts political necessity ahead of friendship, Cameron has changed the nature of his relationship with those who were, until a week or so ago, his closest political allies.