In approximately 12 hours, all UK news will take a back seat as the world looks to the United States and the election of a new American president. Until then, the new Tory leader Kemi Badenoch is trying to drum up as much momentum as possible following her election on Saturday.
This morning, Badenoch met with her shadow cabinet, after spending Monday making appointments to her top team. It wouldn’t really be a shadow cabinet reshuffle without something going not to plan. In that vein, there was some confusion last night when Jenrick allies announced that he was the new shadow justice secretary – only for the Badenoch camp to offer no confirmation.
Has Badenoch done enough to reach out across the party?
That confirmation came this morning along with a raft of other appointments (see the full guide on Coffee House). Badenoch has put two of her leadership rivals in shadow great offices of state – Mel Stride as shadow chancellor and Priti Patel as shadow foreign secretary. Chris Philp – who has two years experience as a minister of state in the Home Office – has been made shadow home secretary.
She has also rewarded loyalty: Alex Burghart, a member of the 2017 intake (who tend to be fiercely loyal to Badenoch) has not one but two jobs. He’s been handed the Cabinet Office brief as well as being made shadow secretary of state for Northern Ireland. Intriguingly, another close Badenoch ally – and 2017-er – Julia Lopez has not been given a shadow cabinet brief but instead made parliamentary private secretary (and will attend Cabinet). The idea is that Badenoch needs someone she can trust for parliamentary engagement given party management could be a challenge.
The question MPs are asking: has Badenoch done enough to reach out across the party? Notably, her former leadership rivals James Cleverly and Tom Tugendhat have decided to return to the backbenches. There they will be joined by plenty of one-time Tory big beasts such as Jeremy Hunt, Rishi Sunak and Andrew Mitchell.
As for Team Jenrick, there have been some attempts to reach out. Two prominent Jenrick backers have been given shadow cabinet posts – Ed Argar as shadow health secretary and Victoria Atkins as shadow environment secretary (with a brief to take the fight to Labour over their treatment of farmers). But other key figures in the Jenrick campaign are notably absentm, with the bulk of the top jobs going to those who backed Badenoch during the leadership campaign. There are already grumblings from supporters of the Jenrick campaign that this is not enough.
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