A Coffee House challenge: how to sell a Cabinet?

James

Perhaps Polly Toynbee could be Secretary of State for creative writing?
I'd further nominate Janet Daly as Chief Whip, so long as she is actually whipped!
If having children qualifies you for Secretary of State for Children, Shcools and Families - then perhaps Madonna or Angelina Jolie would be excellent candidates.
Finally, bring back Maggie - with Gordon gone we'll all need a little madness to cheer us all up!
Oh, and in case you hadn't noticed, I'm also trying to do my bit to get more women into a Tory Cabinet!

mark c

bring back john harvey jones and let him do for the NHS or the old home office departments as he did at Morgan or Churchill

Ray

David Davis - still the darling of the Tory faithful, and a real man-of-the-people (at least insofar as any Parliamentarian can ever be 'of the people') who can debate crime, immigration and the New Labour Nanny State in the language that ordinary folk in those key constituencies in the Midlands and the North understand and can connect with.
Cameron desperately needs his kind of down-to-Earth presence back in the Cabinet; and the obvious slot for him remains that of Party Chairman (sorry, Caroline).

Searcher

Oh dear. This was posted at 4.23 pm. Now it's 8.46 pm. No-one else has commented. If there are still no comments in a week, do I get the champagne by default?

Ian

OK - here's four for you. Even with my marketing hat on, it was tougher than you think.

George Osborne -
George Osborne is already setting the agenda with clearly viable tax policies. Those on Inheritance Tax, non-doms and air tax were stolen by Alistair Darling, desperate and devoid of his own ideas as his and Brown's policies unravel. We need George Osborne as Chancellor to implement these policies and others properly to get the economy back on its feet.

Michael Gove -
Since Tony Blair's mildly progressive education bill of 2006 - passed only with the support of the Conservatives - Ed Balls has been holding back these reforms to suit Labour's old prejudices. Only Michael Gove has the policies that truly build on the 1996 act, that transcend the old left's prejudices of political meddling and the right's of grammar schools, and give back choice and power to parents in the education and wellbeing of their children.

Dominic Grieve -
Jack Straw and Jacqi Smith tell us to be "have-a-go" heroes and confront criminals and anti-social behavior. Ministers then wear stab vests to the kebab shop, as citizens who try this get injured or needlessly arrested by police driven by quotas. Dominic Grieve HAS confronted louts and directed the police to solve crimes. He has the unique experience and knowledge of what needs to be done by the police and the justice system to protect all of us.

Iain Duncan Smith -
Iain Duncan Smith is truly setting the agenda on reviving our inner cities and rescuing people from poverty. He has diligently researched the causes of social breakdown and devised policies to enable social breakthrough. James Purnell is wise and brave to copy these, but with Brown, Balls, Straw, Darling and Blears clueless, only IDS and the Conservatives can drive the policies through and alleviate true poverty.

Canon Alberic

John Redwood - who has re-invented himself as a brilliant communicator on the internet. He must be extraordinarily hard to work with; or perhaps Dave has a real tendresse for the Welsh National Anthem.
Eric Pickles who is the most obviously human Tory since Julian Critchley, and a proper Northener.
David Davis because he has courage and lets face it, love or loathe the blessed Margaret, noone minded that she was a bit crazy because she obviously meant it, and thats an increasingly rare quality in all polticians.
Michael Portillo, because if it all goes 1990 for Dave you need a pantomime villain to wield the assasins knife.

Mick (Wokingham)

Deputy: Pickles (toff off)
Chancellor: Osborne (energy & candour)
Home: Lansley (Common sense)
Foreign: Hague (Diplomacy)

Hereford

Michael Gove definitely. But only because he looks like Rick Moranis from Ghost Busters. Particularly when he does that pout thing. See picture at http://meaningfuldistractions.wordpress.com/2008/07/06/news_rick_moranis_say_no_to_ghostbusters_game_89876/

He just looks so earnest, trustworthy and pleasant.

NorthernJohn

Number One: I rate Osborne generally, but I just don't get the inheritance tax thing,. so I nominate Irwin Stelzer for Chancellor because of his preference for income tax cuts above death duties:

"The owners of houses that have risen in value because of a rising property market have not worked hard to increase those values. Rather, they have gone about their daily lives and profited from the confluence of low interest rates, rising demand for housing and a healthy economy. Their heirs, who will have to pay the death duty, have done even less to earn this increment in wealth.

Surely, their unearned gains should not be the first place to which any party looks when seeking to lighten the tax burden. After all, reducing inheritance tax will not have any positive supply-side effects: it will not give people an incentive to work harder, as a reduction in taxes on wages would do."

Full article can be found here http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article1073845.ece

Number Two: Like most of the posters here, I'd keep Michael Gove exactly where he is - Education (or whatever that department is called these days). I'd love to see him move to another brief after he's implemented his radical schools policy.

Number Three: Frank Field, Work and Pensions. I'll admit this is risky and harsh for Grayling who has had some excellent things to say, but bring him on board and let him think the unthinkable. A Labour MP from Merseyside would get away with saying and doing things that most Tories simply couldn't.

Number Four: the Tories need a big-hitter at Foreign Affairs, given recent events. I let my mind run riot with this one and considered a number of candidates from Tony Blair to Frederick Forsyth (who always comes across very well on Question Time), but on reflection (and with some reservations) I'd say it's best to play it safe with Hague. At his best, he is unbeatable (his pre-Iraq war speech was of the highest calibre) and he is respected (by Republicans at least) in the USA. He also has the added benefit of being loved by the grass roots and a northerner, so he'd balance some of the more metropolitan aspects of the Cameron regime. (My reservations arise from his extra-curricular activities - time to drop the after dinner speaking / book writing etc, methinks - and from his lack of presence over South Ossetia, although Cameron has had a high profile on this, so maybe Hague has stepped back to allow his leader to enhance his international profile, which is no bad thing).

Nicholas

David Davis who, of all the current crop of politicians, probably understands that the job is as much about holding parliament to account on behalf of the people as it is to pursue the governing agenda.

Portillo. Mellowed, wiser and with valuable scar tissue with which to guide the younger Tory turks in much needed pragmatism and common sense. Also has a nose for what's in the wind and damage control.

John Redwood. Ditto, but also a flag bearer for true Conservative values and a sharply-honed ability to smell bullshit at 50 miles. His realism and scepticism about Europe will be needed in the years ahead as the would-be super state continues to flex its atrophied socialist muscles at Britain's expense. Will bring back healthy debate and dissent in cabinet which may one day overcome the media's unhealthy obsession with "split" and divert us from the fascist path.

Ian Duncan-Smith. Hands on insight and experience into the many social ills plaguing 21st Century Britain but also military insight and experience of immeasurable value in the inherited foreign adventures and the new ones looming as the strategic tetonic plates of the post Cold War world continue to move.

PhilM

As we move into uncertain times in terms of global politics, I'd put Malcolm Rifkind as Foreign Secretary - experienced, thoughtful, right about Iraq.

Michael Forsyth as Chancellor - of the same tax-cutting ilk as Redwood, but less Vulcanite.

Definitely Michael Gove at Schools - radical, gravitas, human, amusingly quirky.

To co-ordinate everything, I'd put George Osborne as some sort of enforcer in a suped-up, wide ranging Party Chairman role. He'd be to Cameron what John Reid was to Blair.

James Grant

So who won?