Reshuffle rumours | 2 October 2008

The financial crisis has rather got Brown out of his reshuffle hole. The word in Westminster is that there will be a relatively minor reshuffle tomorrow. To my mind, the most interesting question is who will Brown make Chief Whip? That choice will give us a good idea of how secure Brown thinks his position is and how he intends to handle the rebels, who haven’t gone away but are just biding their time.

Anyway, here’s a little list of the speculation that’s out there:

John Hutton to move from BERR (Telegraph) Hillary Benn to go from DEFRA (Boulton and Co) Tony McNulty to Chief Whip (The Sun)

There’s a ton of other speculation floating around in Westminster—Liam Byrne to the Cabinet Office, Cruddas to the Cabinet, Paul Murphy to a new department of the nations—but these seem to be the main rumours. Most people are expecting a fairly undramatic reshuffle but I can’t think of the last reshuffle that actually went smoothly so expect some drama before this is all over.