Good riddance. Suella Braverman should never have been home secretary. She was appointed by Liz Truss and then Rishi Sunak for two bad reasons. One was in return for her support in their leadership campaigns. The other was to have a rightwing voice in the cabinet. Braverman has been sacked not for pressuring a senior police chief to cancel a protest. She has gone for infuriating Sunak by writing a newspaper article about it. This is no way to run the country.
There is nothing unusual in a prime minister seeking to balance party factions in a cabinet. But the test should not be loyalty, but fitness for office. Boris Johnson disregarded that in 2019 when he dismissed from the cabinet able ministers from Theresa May’s reign and replaced them with second-raters. Sunak failed to correct that mistake and has been punished for it.
A government with a perfectly secure majority has been in perpetual crisis primarily because of the poor quality of its senior membership, revealed in embarrassing detail by the Covid inquiry. With the possible exceptions of Michael Gove and James Cleverly, Sunak chose a second- and third-rate team. He has been chopping and changing ever since. Ministers such as Grant Shapps have held four cabinet posts in just over a year.
It is said that it takes two years before ministers can run their offices effectively. Until then, their offices run them. That depends on them being allowed to do so. Braverman illustrated how debilitated the present civil service is in being able to advise and, if need be, curb a recalcitrant newcomer. It is nonsense to believe that officials are there to do as they are told. They represent legality and experience in government and the need for Whitehall coordination. At present, ministries such as justice, health, transport and housing seem perpetually overstretched and accident-prone. Nothing is more damaging to a government department than a constant change of minister. Under the present Tory party, that has become a disease.
Sunak is an honest and hardworking prime minister, but one embarrassingly short of sound advice. He is unlikely to have more than another year in Downing Street and is entitled to pray that it be a peaceful one. He has put the Home Office in the hands of Cleverly and brought David Cameron back to office – at least he has the virtue of experience. But when the only figure fit to be foreign secretary was not a member of either house of parliament, then you know the Tories are in deep trouble. (Cameron will now enter the House of Lords as a life peer.)
The Conservative party used to define itself above all as a club. Its leaders knew they could rely on friendship, loyalty and good behaviour, especially in office. The present party is quite different. It is a band of self-starters, individuals and loners. It is certainly no club. They can now be relied upon for one thing: to turn Sunak’s lame-duck premiership into a fierce primary campaign for his succession.
Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist
