It is just over a fortnight since the Tory leadership result and Kemi Badenoch is now putting the final touches to her first front bench team. With only 121 Tory MPs to choose from, she has worked to avoid a Truss-style scenario by promoting both loyalists and colleagues who backed other candidates. Thus, Mel Stride, her rival who backed James Cleverly, is the new Shadow Chancellor. Robert Jenrick was given the Justice brief while his ally Neil O’Brien is deputising at Education.
Having reshuffled the shadow cabinet within 72 hours of being elected, Badenoch took her time to carefully fill more junior slots in parliament. But now the names of the new Whips’ Office can be revealed. Nine of the 26 Tories elected for the first time in July have been given posts as junior whips – a recognition of the need to blood new talent quickly. Those charged with managing party and parliamentary business are: Harriet Cross, Ashley Fox, Rebecca Smith, Katie Lam, Ben Obese-Jecty, Rebecca Paul, Andrew Snowden, Greg Stafford and Nick Timothy.
Two points are immediately obvious when looking at that list of names. First, the number of MPs who are highly regarded by their colleagues. Nick Timothy, Theresa May’s former chief of staff, was already a national figure prior to entering parliament. Katie Lam, a former spad and president of the Cambridge Union, is tipped already to hold high office. Harriet Cross, who triumphed over the SNP by just 878 votes in July, was chosen by Tom Tugendhat to introduce his leadership launch. There are echoes of the 1980s and 1990s when the Whips’ Office served as a nursery of Tory talent – and a training ground for future ministers.
Cross’s post points to the second obvious conclusion from this list of names. Of the aforementioned nine, five of the newbies (Cross, Fox, Lam, Snowden, Timothy) were publicly backing rival candidates on our list before the membership round. Others, like Obese-Jecty, backed Badenoch from early on. Unity is something which Team Kemi is keen to stress in making these appointments. Other MPs from the new intake have also been given jobs as Parliamentary Private Secretaries (PPS) to members of the shadow cabinet.
David Reed, who backed his neighbour Mel Stride, was the first to publicly announce this on Friday; more names will doubtless trickle out in due course.
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