Cameron Can't Sack His Cabinet Deadbeats

The so-called silly season this year has been shorter than usual, thanks partly to the Olympics and partly to the very serious matter of the economic crisis. It has, however, had one traditional element: speculation about a Cabinet reshuffle. We are at, notionally, the halfway point of this parliament, two-and-a-half years into a five-year term. Apart from losing ministers such as David Laws, the former Lib Dem Chief Secretary to the Treasury, or Liam Fox, the former Defence Secretary, for reasons of impropriety, the Cabinet is largely as the Prime Minister made it in May 2010. The main rumour doing the rounds is that ministers thought to be deeply conservative may be promoted in a forthcoming reshuffle, with sacrifices made of those considered too ‘wet’, as Mrs Thatcher would have put it.