Cabinet Reshuffles after Euro-elections

With a major reshuffle promised for after the Euro elections (seems a little odd to do as one newspaper suggested that the reshuffle take place before the Euro's are counted, with the new Cabinet immediately tarnished with defending the results), I thought it would be interesting to see the scale of reshuffles after the previous Euro elections.

	2004	1999	1994	1989	1984
Seats lost	6	33	13	13	15
Vote Share	23	28	28	35	38
Seats	19	29	18	32	45
Vote Position	2	2	2	2	1
Cabinet Members sacked	1	3	4	4	1
Reshuffled	0	2	6	10	1

This table shows the outcome for the governing party of the time of all but the first Euro-elections and the subsequent reshuffle.

It appears that 4 is the maximum casualty rate from a Euro election reshuffle, with Thatchers fall in sight in 89, and Major's panic-strewn (but post leadership election) reshuffle in 94 as hardly enviable comparators for Brown.

NB. Figures in the table won't always add up - as the UK allocation of Euro seats has changed over time, the figures used are like-for-like comparators.

Who does precedent suggest will be the next Home Secretary?

With one of the more likely posts to be reshuffled thought to be the Home Secretary, and with much made of her inexperience, I thought it would be interesting to look at where her predecessors had come from, and their experience before becoming Secretary of State for the Home Department (its old-fashioned title).

In recent times, 2 Home Secretaries apiece have come from the post of Chief Whip (technically outside the Cabinet, Waddington and Smith, neither of whom seem to have made the transfer from backroom to great office all that well), Chancellor of the Exchequer (Maudling and Jenkins, but in both cases after being in opposition) and Northern Ireland (Hurd and Rees)

Surprisingly, the most likely springboard to Home Office is Education - Clarke, Blunkett and Clarke all made that transition.

There's not a ready explanation for this - Education and Home Office subjects are hardly all that similar; Thatcher aside and Education Secretaries haven't moved on to the other top posts - PM, Chancellor or Foreign. You could add to the total of Education Secretaries that bit further, by noting that Jack Straw, with no ministerial experience before getting the post, was his party's Education spokesman before getting the Home Office in opposition and then government. And Ken Baker, Major's first Home Sec, was a long serving Education Secretary before becoming his party chair. But counting those two would be cheating.

So, does this mean that the most unlikely prediction for a move in the next reshuffle is for Ed Balls to get the Home Office?

What do Blackburn, South Shields, and Richmond (Yorks) have in common?

They are the only constituencies in the last 40 years to have had successive MPs serve in the Cabinet (whilst being their MP).

With around about the same number of MPs having served in government over that 40 years as there have been MP in any one parliament (around about the 650 mark) you'd expect on average each constituency to have had one government member.

But that's not the way it appears to have worked, even when you take out those seats never likely to have their MPs in government (Northern Ireland, the Scottish and Welsh nationalist strongholds, the Lib (Dem) seats (though only about a dozen could be said to be perennial seats for these three parties combined).

Barbara Castle and Jack Straw in Blackburn have clocked up 16 years in the Cabinet, over the last 41 years. Leon Brittain and William Hague in Richmond a more modest 8 years and David Clarke (remember him? - Cabinet minister in the Cabinet Office for a year, sacked by Blair at the first opportunity, responsible for the Freedom of Information white paper which ultimately, via many twists, led us to where we are today on MP expenses) and David Miliband in South Shields just 5 years.

Stockport appears to be the opposite of these seats, with none of their MPs over the last few decades having had a government post, though the incumbent Anne Coffey is one of the longest serving (perhaps the longest serving) Parliamentary Private Secretary for, firstly Tony Blair and then Alistair Darling

The culture of South West Surrey

The last Conservative Sec of State for Culture (or National Heritage as it then was) was Virginia Bottomley, the MP for South West Surrey. The man most likely to be the next Conservative MP for South West Surrey is Jeremy Hunt, MP for South West Surrey.

In its relatively short life, it's had 8 Secretaries of State, an average stay of just over 2 years (Tessa Jowell stayed for 6, dragging up everyone elses average). But of them, 4 of them have represented London, 2 of them constituences in Greater Manchester barely 20 miles apart. As Surrey SW can scarely be said to be a long way from London that only leaves Stephen Dorrells brief (less than a year) incumbency to break out of Greaters London and Manchester.

If one of the cases that's always made for the MP-constituency link is how that carries into government and that the perspective politicians get from their constituents serve them well in government, hasn't culture been seen through a remarkably narrow prism?

Why do Welsh Ministers stay in office so much longer than their Westminster and Holyrood colleagues?

Looking at the memberships of the two devolved governments in '99; and Westminster at around the same time, and scrolling forward to the same groups 10 years later (8 for the Scots, as obviously the change in government would have made the exercise irrelevant), there are some stark contrasts between the longevities of the ministerial teams.

For the Scots, over 8 years, just 5 out of the original 22 (22%) ministers were still in office at the end of the 8 years.

For the Welsh, 10 years on, it was 44%. And the 56% who didn't serve the full decade, all departed from the Cabinet in the first 18 months.

In Westminster, we're talking far bigger numbers, both in government and the parliamentary pool they can be drawn from. And there, for the same decade, the figure was 28 out of 108 ministers who were in office in 1999 and still in office 10 years later. 10 of whom (such as Nick Brown, Margaret Beckett, Paul Murphy and John Denham) were not in office for all of that time. So a figure of 26% or 16% depending on how you count these things.

So why does Wales manage such greater stability in government? Smaller gene pool from which to draw potential ministers lessening the push to lose under-performing ministers? Less demanding government and media environment in which to exist? More reluctant 'butcher' in charge of reshuffles? And is there a scrap of evidence that a more stable government base produces better government?

The contrasting fates of Stephen Timms and Tommy McAvoy

The Mandelson reshuffle in October last year contained a surprising,

if barely reported, feature.

Since 1997, when Blair was first elected Prime Minister, and Nick

Brown was in his first incarnation as chief whip (incidentally, I

can't think of anyone else who's had two quite separate stints at

that job, whilst his party's been in government through the time)

Tommy McAvoy the MP for Rutherglen was Comptroller of HM Household,

the 3rd highest position in the whips office.

Few have lasted that long in the whips office, let alone in the same

post. He's the longest serving person in that position by a factor

of more than two since WWII. And then, for no obvious reason on the

surface of things, he was suddenly promoted to the deputy chief's

position. Did Brown (G and N) run out of people to put in that

position? Did they feel McAvoys loyalty warranted some reward

(though its scarely a massive leap)?

McAvoy's longevity in one position is contrasted by the merry-go-

round that Stephen Timms, the member for East Ham, one of the

members elected on the bumper day of by-elections on Euro-election

day 94 that also saw his fellow middle-ranking ministers Gerry

Sutcliffe and Margaret Hodge elected, and Chris Huhne's Eastleigh

seat go LibDem, has seen in his government career.

Not quite in government at the beginning he had to wait for the

first reshuffle in 98 to get a job. But since then, he has featured

in reshuffles with a remarkable frequency. I think he's been

reshuffled 11 times, once a year. He's usually done jobs in the

Treasury, Trade and Industry (as was) and Work and Pensions (as is).

His done his present job, 3rd down in the Treasury, 3 times now

(Nick Brown aside, you won't find many to do the same job twice).

He's also one of the few members of the government to be demoted, as

he once served in the Cabinet as Chief Secretary, before continuing

a government career outside of Cabinet.

If McAvoy and Timms represent opposing poles in consistency in

government positions, Timms' example perhaps represents the extreme

end of the scale of ministers spending insufficient time in one

post.

Demise of the cities in government

One of the (many) interesting features from the 1979 General Election results programme, replayed on BBC Parliament this Bank Holiday Monday, was the highlighting of Leeds, having the constituency of Merlyn Rees (Home Secretary), Denis Healey (Chancellor) and Keith Joseph (author of the Conservative manifesto in 79, occupied a similar position to that of Oliver Letwin today).

You compare that to today, where I don't think any city has had more than one cabinet member in the last decade, let alone have prominent members from both main parties (Sheffield today, has Blunkett and Clegg, but one has been out of government for some years, and the other may be prominent but not in one of the two main parties).

Birmingham, Sheffield, Leeds, Newcastle Edinburgh and Glasgow have had one Cabinet member apiece in the last 10 years (Short, Blunkett, Benn, N Brown, Darling, Dewar) but no prominent opposition members. Manchester and Liverpool, as cities, both a complete sweep of Labour members, haven't provided a Cabinet member between them since 1997. Nor has Bristol (despite the trend to cities becoming Tory free zones over the last 30 years, Bristol has managed a Cabinet member, in Waldegrave) since 1997.

Some of this can be explained by fewer seats in the cities. Birmingham has shed 2 seats, from 12 to 10, from the 70s to today. Manchester almost halved from 8 to 4 and a bit. Liverpool from 8 to 5. Some can be explained by the country becoming more divided, with (outside of extreme swings) fewer Conservative seats in the cities, and Labour seats in the countryside now than 40 years ago. So less chance of senior members of both parties being neighbours as in Leeds.

But that can't explain all of the failure, in greasy-pole terms, of the city seats, nor the lack of liklihood of the Leeds effect of 79 being repeated.

Why the next government won't be the most inexperienced parliamentarians

Assuming the Tories win the next election, their front bench will be the most inexperienced parliamentarians to take up post after an election (there are plenty of reasons to think that those presently shadowing the Cabinet won't form, person-for-person, the next Cabinet. But assumptions have to start from somewhere, and I've started from an assumption of counting those who shadow present cabinet members).

This graph shows the average time served in the Commons by the first Cabinet after a general election every election year since 1970.



Even with Ken Clarke, who alone provides more than one year of the 13-and-a-bit average years that the present opposition front bench have served, they're still one year more inexperienced that the Labour Cabinet after the last General Election.

But, and the reason for the 'won't' in the title, is that Gordon Brown's first Cabinet, was almost a year less experienced (12.96 years in parliament against 13.86 as the Tories will be next year) than Camerons will be in 2010.

Having two Cabinet members (Ball and E Miliband) who'd served in the Commons for only just over 2 years drags down the average from the likes of Straw (28 years in the Commons) Harman (25 years).

This is a drop of more than a full parliament from the start of Blairs government (remarkably close in experience to Thatchers first), and perhaps yet another of the indicators of the growth of the professional politician and the divide between them and those MPs more experienced in the real world. There were barely a handful of MPs from the 79 intake who got beyond the whips office before the 83 election - similar to the number from the 05 intake who'll find themselves in the Cabinet before the 2010 election.