Truss’s appointments are ruffling Tory feathers

Liz Truss has started to appoint supporters of her leadership campaign rivals to ministerial positions, answering the demand (mostly from said supporters of her leadership campaign rivals) to ‘reach out’ across the party to bring the Conservatives back together. There are Rishi Sunak backers in the latest slew of jobs – Robert Jenrick returns to government as health minister, Jeremy Quin goes to the Home Office, Mark Spencer to Defra and Victoria Prentis goes to DWP – along with two who had previously backed Kemi Badenoch (Rachel Maclean goes to Justice and Julia Lopez goes to DCMS). In the interests of fairness and equality, there are a few Truss backers in there too, such as Jackie Doyle-Price and Conor Burns – though I suspect the latter will be disappointed to be moved sideways to the International Trade department. Burns spent much of the summer putting in much legwork setting up meetings designed to resolve the stand-off over the Northern Ireland Protocol.