Badenoch plucks Patel, Jenrick and Stride from the Tories’ tiny gene pool of talent

Priti Patel: she’s dim, she’s dangerous and she’s back. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/AP

Just do the maths. There are 120 other Tory MPs from which Kemi Badenoch can select her ministerial team. Or put it another way, there’s about a one in five chance of any MP making it into the shadow cabinet and a near 100% chance of becoming a ministerial bag carrier. These are days of plenty for ambitious young Tory MPs with one eye on their own careers. It just requires a different mindset.

There again, not every Tory MP will necessarily want a place in Kemi’s team. James Cleverly very publicly snubbed his new boss at the weekend, saying he’d rather a return to the backbenches than carry on as shadow home secretary. He was fed up with having to defend someone else’s brainless policies.