There have been five justice ministers in as many years, and ten housing ministers in the past decade
story of Boris Johnson’s first ministerial reshuffle on February 13th was the unexpected loss of his chancellor, Sajid Javid. But another feature is the acceleration of the ministerial merry-go-round. The Institute for Government , a think-tank, calculates that the average length of service of a senior minister in the past decade has fallen to less than two years—closer to that of a football manager than of a company boss .
Government suffers from such rapid turnover. There have been five justice ministers in the past five years, and ten housing ministers in the past decade . It is hard to recall policy successes in either department, and easy to spot failures. Nor is political churn offset by official stability. TheThe absence of training for ministerial office exacerbates the problem.
This could be a problem for Mr Johnson. Despite his 80-seat majority, he has many enemies inside his party. His reshuffle benefited keen Brexiteers in particular. Many political analysts reckon that this meant rewarding the compliant over the competent. The sacking of Julian Smith, the Northern Ireland secretary, fresh from his success in getting the province’s assembly up and running again, was widely criticised.
Here at least Mr Johnson’s reshuffle featured one welcome innovation: bringing back those whom he had earlier sacked. Penny Mordaunt, a former defence secretary, and James Brokenshire, a former housing and local government secretary, have returned to more junior posts in other departments. Not all former cabinet ministers will feel able to swallow their pride after falling out with the prime minister and his Downing Street team.
This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline "Revolving doors"
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