One man’s loss is another’s gain. Rishi Sunak has acted swiftly to fill the gap left by Dominic Raab’s resignation, appointing 46-year old barrister Alex Chalk as his new Justice Secretary. Like Sunak, he is a Wykehamist who quit Boris Johnson’s cabinet back in July, citing the Paterson, Partygate and Pincher scandals. The appointment flies in the face of reports which suggested that Sunak would appoint a woman to the post, with men occupying three times as many cabinet posts as women.
Awaiting Chalk is an in-tray full of problems. He is the tenth Lord Chancellor in eleven years and inherits a ministry widely regarded as a troubled department, even by Whitehall standards. He will have to deal with a lengthy courts backlog, overcrowded prisons, parole reform and widespread discontent in the legal profession. Labour have sought to make political capital out of the woeful rate of rape prosecutions while Chalk will also have to decide if he wants to keep Raab’s pet project of a British Bill of Rights, at a time when some Tory backbenchers are urging the UK to leave the ECHR. He has some useful relevant experience – with previous posts in the MoJ and the Solicitor-General brief – but has never previously held a cabinet post in his eight years in parliament.
Chalk shares two striking similarities with the man he replaces. The first is, like Raab, he occupies an ultra-marginal seat in the south of England which is currently under threat from the Liberal Democrats. Chalk held onto his Cheltenham seat by just 981 votes last time – the 24th most marginal seat at the 2019 election. The second similarity is Chalk’s loyalty to Sunak, backing him in both contests last year and praising his ‘brains, integrity, stamina, and judgment.’
Sunak was judged to be the best candidate by the bulk of Gloucestershire MPs in last summer’s election. Some of his biggest supporters are found in so-called ‘Blue Wall’ seats in the south west and south east of the country, where Sunak is judged to have the greatest appeal. Today’s appointment can be read as one very much in Sunak’s own image and an attempt to show that loyalty and competence are rewarded in his administration.
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