Politics

Liz Truss’s ministers had not even got their feet beneath the cabinet table before they were treated to a barrage of objections to their appointments. Talk about playing the man rather than the ball. No sooner had Jacob Rees-Mogg been appointed business secretary than Caroline Lucas was declaring him unfit for the position because he has previously expressed sceptical views on climate change. She didn’t even wait to learn that Rees-Mogg will not, in contrast to his predecessor Kwasi Kwarteng, also hold the climate brief, which has gone to Graham Stuart. Meanwhile, Clare Murphy of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service lashed out at Therese Coffey’s appointment on the grounds that

How 10 Downing Street works – or doesn’t – always reflects the character of the prime minister who inhabits it. Boris Johnson’s No. 10 was chaotic and scandal-ridden. Theresa May’s indecision meant that hers was led by the will of her strong-minded advisers, not by her own agenda. David Cameron’s was slick, but last-minute. Liz Truss served in government under all three of them, and so witnessed all three approaches. She wants her Downing Street to be different. Even before Truss entered Downing Street on Tuesday, change was under way. After No. 10 earned a reputation in the past year as a louche place full of late-night drinking, aides have

‘Great offices of state set to contain no white men’ was the way one national newspaper reported the formation of the first Truss cabinet. In addition to Liz Truss, the positions of Chancellor, Foreign Secretary and Home Secretary would respectively be held by Kwasi Kwarteng, James Cleverly and Suella Braverman. Of course, all this was presented as something incredibly new and exciting: real progress at work. In fact it isn’t remotely new. As Chancellor, Kwarteng follows those two famous white men Rishi Sunak and Nadhim Zahawi. As Home Secretary, Braverman succeeds Priti Patel and Sajid Javid. And now that Truss is Prime Minister she is the first woman to relieve