Monday morning is quite possibly the worst morning of the week. This is common knowledge. Thankfully, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has made this Monday, November morning a frightfully good one by making a substitution even Pep Guardiola couldn’t match.
Suella Braverman has been sacked as Home Secretary – with James Cleverly taking up the reins. But the good news doesn’t stop there. David Cameron – yes, former PM David Cameron – has made a dramatic return to Number 10 to accept the offer of replacing Cleverly as Foreign Secretary.
With less than a year to go until the next general election – whenever that will be – this is the equivalent of a last-ditch injury-time winner for the Conservatives. If you’re a Chelsea fan like me, your mind will immediately be cast back to Sunday’s match against Manchester City, when ex-City striker Cole Palmer scored a penalty for Chelsea to make it 4-4 in the 95th minute. It’s fair to say it’s been a decent 24 hours.
So, Dave’s back in town. This is the guy who sent Britain into the doldrums by calling a blasted referendum that unintentionally triggered Brexit. It was hardly a glamorous exit from Number 10 – so why am I so pleased to see David Cameron back in government?
The first reason is simply that Suella Braverman is gone. God, she posed more problems than a maths book. Incendiary comments about the police force “playing favourites” and calling the UK a “dumping ground” for migrants is hardly the behaviour of a competent Home Secretary. Braverman was a loose cannon firing directly at Number 10 – the equivalent of an own goal. It is laughable to think that, only last week, the papers were saying she was coming for the PM’s job. It just goes to show that Rupert Murdoch isn’t as clever as he thinks he is.
Suella’s sacking is excellent news for the Conservative Party because it represents a tectonic shift back towards the centre. A Home Secretary with such a disdainful attitude towards migrants and minority groups in society almost sounds like – dare I say it – the perfect recipe for a potential fascist in government. Such right-wing politics has risen to the fore since the Brexit vote despite representing the views of an extreme minority of Conservatives.
That’s why David Cameron’s return to government is a doubly good thing. Cameron is a moderate Conservative – more of a one-nationist, compared to Suella, who is so extreme she may as well be a no-nationist. Finally, after seven painful years of the rule of the right in the Conservative Party, Sunak the Sensible is pulling us back towards the world of common sense. Not only are we getting rid of the dead wood from the extreme right, but we’re also bringing back the level-headed from the centre.
So, Cameron’s ideological credentials as a social conservative place him in good stead to make our government more electable. With Rishi, Jeremy Hunt, James Cleverly and David Cameron in the ‘big four’ posts, we suddenly have a moderately centrist Conservative lineup. They’re big names, too. What’s Messi, Suarez and Neymar for an attacking trio when you’ve got Sunak, Hunt, Cleverly, and Cameron leading the line for the UK?
What’s more, Cameron’s experience is a blessing. As Foreign Secretary, you need to establish relations with world leaders pretty damn fast if you’re going to get anywhere. Luckily, this job is made far easier when you were Prime Minister for six years. So, although the critics will say the Conservatives can’t be Sunak’s ‘party of change’ when they’ve brought back an old PM, perhaps this is exactly what the government needs. Foreign affairs is a turbulent area at the moment – what with all the bombs going off and Putin’s plot to nuke the world – so perhaps seeking the judgement of a wise old owl is a safe bet.
Of course, Labour will claim it’s all just a PR stunt to detract from Suella Braverman’s embarrassing record and the dreary Conservative performance in the polls. And they’re right. It is. But it’s absolutely bloody genius from the Tory strategists.
And don’t forget Gordon Brown pulled exactly the same trick by reappointing Peter Mandelson to the Cabinet just before the 2010 general election. Yes, it didn’t work, and Brown humiliated himself. But what difference could Mandelson make when he was nothing more than a marketing assistant? The Conservatives, on the other hand, have brought back a former Prime Minister.
Some people might be concerned because, as you might remember, it was David Cameron’s government that started austerity. This process of cutting spending, the leftists say, made our schools mouldy, our NHS slow, and our people poorer. Whilst austerity was undoubtedly a questionable call, don’t forget that it was Chancellor George Osborne who was leading Cameron by the nose on this policy. And where’s George Osborne now? Nobody knows, but I’d guess he’s working in a factory in Liverpool, pretending to be working class again.
With Rishi at the helm, flanked by two experienced moderates – and a bloody former Prime Minister, for God’s sake – the Conservative government seems to have struck gold. It’s what we’ve all been crying out for: some common sense of the actual, experienced kind. This is it. This is the dream team.
Image: Simon Dawson / 10 Downing Street
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