Highlights from the full story:
Simon Hughes: Shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change
Steve Webb: Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
David Heath: Shadow Leader of the House
Jenny Willott: Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
David Howarth: Shadow Secretary of State for Justice
Susan Kramer: chosen to leave the shadow cabinet to take up a new role leading the party’s campaign against the expansion of Heathrow Airport
Lynne Featherstone: Chair of the New Technology Board
Reactions include:
Steve Webb on his blog
Lynne Featherstone on her blog
The Guardian
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24 Comments
So we still have a front bench team of 40+.
So we’ll still be running round westminster commenting in ‘an official capacity’ on the latest statutory intsrument on paper clip procurement (or whatever).
A wasted opportunity to slash the number of spokespeople and tighten up our campaigning messages.
Good to see our pensions professor back at Pensions even though Jenny was doing a good job (and I’m sure will be good in her new role too).
Will David Howarth continue to shadow Solicitor-General, does anyone know?
Interesting to note that about the only thing that corresponds with the November “leak” is Chris Huhne losing Justice.
Well expect this all to slip down the news agenda later in the day when Ken Clarke returns to the Tory fold….
All in all not spectacular but not bad either…personally a little dissappointed to see CK return…
Pleased about Susan Kramer’s decision. She’ll be excellent in that role.
Sadly:
(1) Goldsworthy is still in;
(2) Lyn Featherstone and Susan Kramer continue to be kept on the margins.
Is David Heath really needed in what is basically a Parliamentary admin role? Wouldn’t he be better off getting seen and heard in Frome and Shepton Mallet?
Sorry, I’m “Anonymous”.
You cynic, Darrell. The Guardian is already reporting it, admittedly by saying “Leftwinger Steve Webb is casualty“.
Oh, and: “Clegg has not delivered his threat to remove former leadership rival Chris Huhne from the environment post.” Good to know!
That is absolutely classic meedja-balls, isn’t it – “it fits with our existing narrative about the party moving to the right so we’ll jam it in”. Not a word about the fact that Webb started out in that line of work.
Ned – we can’t possibly know what Clegg might have intended to do – after the leak he couldn’t possibly move Huhne!
Neil, but going by that logic he “couldn’t” have moved Webb either – and the Guardian is certainly making enough hay with that. An alternative reason for not moving Huhne might be that he is pretty obviously doing a great job?
Neil – I take your point generally. 🙂
Specifically for Huhne, though, I was slyly quibbling with the Grauniad that Clegg couldn’t move Huhne from environment now, having moved him from environment to home+justice 12.5 months ago.
Thanks Ned,
The point i’m really trying to make about Kennedy is this; we need a pugalist. Let’s be blunt; Clegg doesnt do combatative well, when he tries it he just looks ‘tectchy’ and thats why I think what Letterman said was basically correct….
Good to see David Howarth at Justice. It’s a role that plays to his strengths.
I’m quite sad about Susan Kramer, m’self, given that the Heathrow expansion is being opposed by lots of other people, and NOBODY is doing the sort of stellar work she was doing at Children and families.
“The point i’m really trying to make about Kennedy is this; we need a pugalist.”
Can’t see that as Charles forte though….
Clegg having to do a postscript reshuffle only a year after setting up his shadow cabinet just shows up bad judgment in the first place. Instead of grumbling about very capable colleagues he should be apologising for putting them into the wrong slot.
Steve Webb’s CV shows he is an academic and intellectual; his experience makes him very suited to the Work and Pensions brief.
So why Clegg ever thought Steve would respond well to the controversies, the misconceptions and the politics of the Climate Change and Energy brief is difficult to understand.
Simon will play the hand well because it suits his personality better and I think he has done the Environment brief in the past.
He is also one of the best known Libdems because of his long high profile track record,and this is likely to help him in getting the necessary public confidence.
The beautiful Jenny is still a bit young for the difficult and dull pensions brief but would be great in a role involving direct human empathy. I’m sure she would make a good ambassador for us with young people; such a shame to make her Duchy of Lancaster whatever that may be.
David Laws was good at the W&P brief too, and the move to education seemed odd; he has gone a bit quiet since he went there.
Perhaps he is hatching up a big plan for UK education.
It is difficult to see why Clegg put Home and Justice together under Chris when the government has split them under two different ministers. Obviously better for us to get two shadows trained up instead of one.
To put Lynne behind e-technology is all very well but she is another one like Jenny who has a really human appeal.
I thought she was so good when after Brown and Cameron shouting at each other through six questions on Baby P, Lynne put her very simple polite case and Brown was so overtaken by her good manners that he actually gave a proper answer.
That’s enough shadow cabinet! I like most of them very much and often follow their lonely performances on the parliamentary channel.
Elizabeth
I do agree it’s a bit ridiculous putting a woman in charge of technology (to say nothing of making that nice girl Jenny deal with all those horrible uncouth men from Lancashire), but you have to remember what poor Mr Clegg is up against. If he’d done something more sensible like making Lynne the shadow Cookery Secretary or sending Jenny to the Ministry of Poorly Children, the “PC brigade” would be up in arms!
“Clegg having to do a postscript reshuffle only a year after setting up his shadow cabinet just shows up bad judgment in the first place. Instead of grumbling about very capable colleagues he should be apologising for putting them into the wrong slot.”
Sorry Elizabeth, this reshuffle does not mean that at all. Like any team strengths and motivations change. Surely being prepared to make changes is a strength not a weakness. As our Parliamentary party grows, a squad approach is possible and a luxury we have never had before.
Pretty strong. I’m disappointed to see Julia Goldsworthy not get promoted, perhaps to education, as I feel David Laws isn’t particularly happy there.
A shame, also, to see Jo Swinson not promoted. As the geeky among you may be aware, that BBC article about her being the youngest MP was one of the five most read things on the Politics site.
David Howarth at Justice is, as always, a good choice.
I agree with Thomas in that Laws not feeling particularly happy and/or challenged at education was one of the bits of the Clegg-on-plane incident that rang true.
Still, education is supposedly going to be a key plank of the manifesto going into the next election, don’t forget, and there was a consultation session in Bournemouth. Given our current similarities to the Tories, it’s not surprising that brief is a bit out of the limelight just now.
(I’d like to live in the kind of political world where it was considered a strength rather than a weakness to say “Actually, we agree with the other guys on this issue, so our policy is pretty similar”, but there we go, I’m just eccentric 🙂 ).
What we’d like to do and what we can do are totally different. (Although I happen to agree with you, even if the Tories wouldn’t be my first port of call for agreement on policy).
In fairness to the Guardian (having moaned about their coverage yesterday), they improved that article from yesterday, and today’s is less annoying.
As much as we may be sad someone hasn’t been promoted, we shouldn’t forget that some MPs quite rightly want to get re-elected first. There will also be others who may be happy in their current role and do any of us know whether Charles wants to or is ready to return to the frontbench?
For what it’s worth I think this reshuffle is little to get excited over. It puts Simon back in a prominent role now his time as president is over, it moves Steve to a more suitable job and it puts Susan in a role that I think is excellent given her constituency and who the Tory candidate is. The rest is merely tinkering around the edges.