Society

Radical reform of Britain’s public services must be a priority for the next Tory government. But today’s reshuffle was a blow to the reform agenda. This morning, two of the three key public service jobs—education, welfare and health—were in the hands of committed reformers. Now, only education is. The reformers have long given up on making progress on health until, at the earliest, Cameron’s second term. A political decision was made right at the beginning of Cameron’s leadership to simply try and shut down the debate on health. Consequently, Tory health policy has been subcontracted out to the British Medical Association. But on education and welfare there were signs of

David Cameron’s decision to move Dominic Grieve from Home to Justice shows that he is capable of rectifying his own mistakes, an important quality for leader. Grieve was appointed in a panic, in an effort to shut down the story when David Davis resigned over 42 days. It was apparent at the time that Grieve was not the man for the job; Nick Herbert would have been a far better pick. Chris Grayling will bring his phenomenal work-rate to the job. The Home Office is still not fit for purpose and one can be certain that Grayling will be terrier-like in uncovering scandals. However, Grayling will have to avoid acting

As a respite from all the reshuffle talk (don’t worry: There Will Be More), it’s worth flagging up this passage in Peter Oborne’s Mail article today.  “To give one example of RBS’s suicidal carelessness among many, it is owed some £2.5billion by the Russian oligarch Leonid Blavatnik which will never be seen again. Next month, when the bank announces its results, it is expected to unveil a truly terrifying loss of approximately £30billion. These losses – and new ones are emerging every day – are all met by the British taxpayer. Indeed, RBS’s asset value merely needs to fall by 10 per cent, and twice the annual cost of the