It doesn’t take Alan Turing levels of decoding skill to decipher the message that Sir Keir Starmer sent to the Home Office in his ministerial reshuffle. Much of the ministerial team of the former home secretary, Yvette Cooper, has been transferred to other duties, indeed to the four winds across Whitehall. As a vote of no confidence in her it couldn’t be more painful.
Dan Jarvis remains as a minister of state, but even he has been given a parallel ministerial role close to the prime minister in the Cabinet Office. The new group of ministers at the Home Office may not be household names even in their own kitchens, but around Westminster and around the party they are known for their impatience over the lack of progress on ending the small boats and asylum hotels crisis. Indeed, Mike Tapp, MP for Dover, can claim that he’s on the “front line” of this most controversial of issues.
