Theresa May’s tragicomic run of rotten luck continues. Amber Rudd has self-deported to the backbenches and the Prime Minister will have to find a credible replacement at a moment of acute strife. Why anyone would want the job is a mystery to most of us, but then we lack that combination of ambition and self-delusion essential to political life. The Home Office is where potential is thrown on the rack and brutalised, where careers go to die slow, ignominious deaths; it is Whitehall’s ultimate hostile environment. (Ministers disagree and began speculating about a Rudd return with unseemly haste. They may be right but they could at least feign a bout of reflection and contrition.)
Home Secretaries enter the office with one of two mindsets. Either they believe it can be managed effectively and their predecessors just lacked their innate abilities or they know it’s a £9bn trashcan fire but reckon they can keep the flames under control long enough to be reshuffled to safety.
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