Part Two – Beyond the Big Beasts (To read Part I – Two Big Surprises – published yesterday, please click here).
Lynne Featherstone has clearly earned a promotion to shadow Ed Balls at the Department of Communities and Local Government, with her work around the ‘Baby P’ case. And David Laws would better suit a move to Energy and Climate Change, where he could make a good case for the economics of our green policies and be an effective opponent of Ed Miliband, thought by many to be the more talented Miliband brother and certainly someone to be taken seriously.
My final choices are where I will most likely lose those of you who have managed to read this far… but hear me out! It is stating the obvious to say that our front bench is extremely white, our representation of minorities is abysmal and there is little we can do about that until the next election, outside of appointments to the Lords. The Conservatives have tried to beat the perceptions of them by appointing Baroness Warsi to a high profile position. We have done little or nothing.
For this I don’t have a complete answer and a reshuffle can only be a tiny part of the solution. We have a potentially effective spokesperson for DCLG in the Lords in Baroness Falkner. Julia Goldsworthy has never seemed entirely comfortable in her role shadowing Hazel Blears, and Nick could do worse than promoting Baroness Falkner in the Lords: she is extremely intelligent and capable (although she may need some media training – she has had a tendency to stumble in some of her Lords’ debates). It would create some challenges in holding Hazel Blears to account in Parliament but those are not insurmountable.
Julia did well in her role as Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury and would again be a good deputy for Vince if she were to return there. Jeremy Browne could move to Defence, where Nick Harvey has done little of note. Putting someone so close to Nick Clegg’s inner circle in this position would send a signal that we are taking defence policy seriously, particularly our policy on the Gurkhas, which straddles defence and the home office. Our withdrawal from Iraq, and the change in policy on Afghanistan coming from Obama, will be important times for the Liberal Democrats to remind the public of our good judgement over this issue. Not to mention the continuing issue of the under-resourcing and over-deployment of our troops under this Government.
There are obviously quite a few glaring omissions here. The Work and Pensions brief will become more important over the next year with the expected increases in unemployment but I haven’t made any suggestions for that. Will Jenny Willott be the best person for the job? Do we need a change at Transport, or is Norman Baker doing a great job as it is? I think Chris Huhne is doing well in his current position at Home Affairs, and there isn’t any real need to move him, but some of you might think otherwise. I also haven’t said what would happen to John Thurso and his award-winning beard.
I hope you can understand some of my reasoning here and if nothing else I hope I’ve started a discussion for what could be some extremely important choices in the run up to the next election. In case you missed them here are my proposed appointments in full:
Shadow Secretary of State for Business and Public Sector Reform (BERR)
Lord Ashdown
Shadow Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills
Charles Kennedy
Shadow Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families
Lynne Featherstone
Shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change
David Laws
Shadow Secretary of State for the Department of Communities and Local Government
Baroness FalknerShadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury
Julia Goldsworthy
Shadow Secretary of State for Defence
Jeremy Browne
* Letterman is a regular commenter on LDV. He is a politically-restricted party member (hence the pseudonym). You can read Part I of his January reshuffle opinion – Two Big Surprises – by clicking here.
Follow @LibDemVoice on Twitter
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
John Stoa Original Art exhibition #dundeewestend
The Muesli Assassins
Nick Cook: England's forgotten spinner of the Eighties
Tristan Ward
William Wallace
Ruth Clark
Steve Comer
Phillip Bennion
15 Comments
Yet again there is an assumption that Equalities portfolio is a unimportant role that is only a stepping stone onto bigger and better things.
It may de facto be so, but it is continually frustrating to have a role that could help improve the lives of at least 52% of the population and their dependents.
I think Lynne has done really well in the equalities role and has proved what can be done with it.
It is a vitally important role and should not be treated with such disdain.
I hate this kind of useless, far-fetched speculations. We don’t even know yet if Gordon Brown will have any reshuffle, and yet the “Letterman” is already distributing the portfolios in Nick Clegg’s Shadow Cabinet. :-/
I also think that it would be wise to make more prominent those MP’s with larger majorities so that they can be encouraged to do more high profile visits to target constituencies in the run up to and during the election because these MP’s are less likely to be needed as much in their own constituencies due to their majorities.
I am not sure putting David Laws in charge of climate change is such a good idea given his free market enthusiasm. I would like to know whether his views have changed now we have seen the disasterous effects of “light-touch” regulation and self-regulation in the financial sector.
Now we know how irresponsible the private sector can be, we need someone who is noticably sceptical in the role of the private sector in dealing with climate change. We should stop being obsessed with whether the Lib Dems has credibility in the private sector and ask instead how much credibility they have with us.
Although the Gurkas is an important defence issue, far more important is whether the UK should continue to possess WMD, and given the costs involved when we can least afford them I would want to check out the opinions of anyone who takes over defence.
We are right to take credit over Iraq, but I am a lot more sceptical about our “35 year commitment” to helping out Afghanistan. We should accept that as with Iraq we are stuck in a quagmire, and although there is a price to paid in leaving, there is even a bigger price to paid in staying. The resources we are putting in Afghanistan could acheive a lot more in other parts of the world who actually want our help, rather than in Afghanistan where we have little to show after 7 years.
Geoffrey is right about our frankly mindless and seeming never ending commitment to intervention in Afghanistan. I rather think in our case it is a filibuster against charges we are somehow ‘soft on terrorism’ and/or an attempt to avoid the appearence of pacifism…
With regard to David Laws I tend to also agree. I happen to think Steve Webb is doing a good job and should stay in his post…
Geoffrey Payne, actually the disasterous effects are due to “hard-touch” regulation in the financial sector. The U.S. neoconservative politicians (who vow in the name of the Free Markets, but do the opposite) wanted to increase owner-occupation (thinking that would also increase their support) and in order to achieve that wooed, pressed and forced (which hardly can be called “light-touch” regulation) banks to give risky loans to people, who couldn’ta afford to pay them back. Now the effects are visible to everyone, first Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac fell, then due to the domino-effect others.
But naturally the politicians don’t want to take the responsibility of their actions, but blame the “free” markets. And socialists like you couldn’t agree more, because they get wind beneath their wings, and demand even more regulation, which caused the whole disaster. Markets may not be perfect, but do you really think that the politicians are better? Just think of Gordon Brown. :-/
Nich – you need to turn your thinking upside down surely? MPs in constituencies with lower majorities need as much media exposure as they can get in order that their constituents can see why they should stick with the same party?
Therefore MPs with lower majorities should be given as much chance for promotion/a higher profile role as MPs who are considered ‘safe’.
Anonymous has a post with very little truth in it. It’s just simply wrong. The regulation often blamed, the Communities Regulation Act, is over 20 years old. The vast majority of the mortgage lending in the last boom came from banks not covered by the CRA.
I see anonymous’ point in many places. Odd how it’s the governments fault for corporate greed.
Presumably Anonymous thinks that Vince Cable should be sacked for proposing nationalising Northern Rock?
I think Anonymous should read someone who knows what is going on, Joseph Stiglitz for example;
http://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/2009/01/stiglitz200901
Government department-sized typo in paragraph 1!
Geoffrey Payne, I see you have made some hard research on the reasons of the current disaster … from Vanity Fair!
I think Geoffrey Payne should read someone who really knows what is going on, Richard A. Epstein for example;
http://www.forbes.com/opinions/2008/10/06/congress-nozick-bailout-oped-cx_rae_1007epstein.html
Disappointing to hear a commentator perpetuating the myth that we need such a big shadow cabinet at all, or that the party benefits from it.
“Whilst it’s difficult to make an argument that we will form a government after the next election, we do need to appear ready to do so”
Only two parties have any potential to lead the next government – the Tories and Labour. Anyone thinking otherwise should stick to their day job. Our job is not to be “ready for government” but to be ready to play a junior role in government – like the role we played in Scotland and Wales. For that we need a small team – a handful of potential ministers. Having 30 “Front-benchers” out of 54 MPs uis totally unnecessary and undermines parliamentary democracy. It would be better for our party if MPs were more free to act as parliamentarians and back-benchers, with the freedom that gives them.
Jo >Nich – you need to turn your thinking upside down surely? MPs in constituencies with lower majorities need as much media exposure as they can get in order that their constituents can see why they should stick with the same party?
That would depend on whether National media exposure and spending less time on local issues builds a majority better than local media exposure.
If I recall correctly, Ed Davey probably built his majority from 56 to 15,000 in 1997->2001 by personally meeting 35-40k constituents in a 4-5 year period (in addition to other campaigns and things such as an independent Lib-Lab vote-swap scheme – no idea how effective that was).
So I’m not sure I agree with you, but it may be tactical – perhaps even down to whether the local media is parochial or not.
Can someone tell me exactly why Lib Dem bloggers rate Lynne Featherstone so highly as a spokesperson?
Aside from being a good blogger (how many voters does that reach) and making hay over Baby P (a constituency issue), can anybody set out what she has done with the Equalities brief?
Susan Kramer has set out a new and expansive childcare policy.
David Laws is set to reform our schools policies at Spring Conference.
Chris Huhne holds the Government to account day in day out over their criminal justice policies.
Vince Cable is…..well Vince.
What has Lynne done?
Have to agree with Puzzled on Lynne. I lost all credence in her abilities at autumn conference two years ago (Brighton) where she gave an abysmal speech in her international development role – it was incoherent, jumped from issue to issue, betrayed a lack of understanding of the role of different elements in development, e.g. trade policy, and at times was simply incorrect. Yes she did a good job wih Baby P, but I can’t see that she did better than any other MP would have done in the same position.
In my opinion our most under-utilised MP is Susan Kramer – took losing transport, where she was doing a brilliant job of opposing Heathrow expansion, well, and has really made something of what people see as a ‘lesser’ portfolio. I’m also not sure what Norman Baker has done at Transport – only things I’ve seen him talk about are his usual cleaning up the commons/funding/etc hobbyhorses (not to imply that they aren’t important, but would he be better able to engage them as e.g. shadow leader of the house).
Oh, and what has Jenny Willott done?