The media is building anticipation of a cabinet reshuffle. Certainly one is needed to sharpen up the perception of a government in control of events, not the victim of them. Whatever Cameron does will impact the Labour front bench. What makes this latest prospect of musical chairs most interesting is that it is the first in the coalition. It will be a test of Cameron’s courage, but also a test of Ed Milliband, since both men have the same problem. Neither Osborne, nor Balls are any longer right for their jobs and in both parties better men are waiting.
Osborne has been a good Chancellor in many ways. He has toughened regulation in the City, restored the authority of the Bank of England and at last set about re-structuring the banks, albeit at too slow a pace. He has made a stab at cutting the size of government and is slowly cutting the structural deficit. What he has not done is cause the economy to grow, indeed it has shrunk. His tax revenue has fallen and his benefit bill has risen, thus a new kind of deficit is set to overtake the old one. Rightly he refuses to borrow to grow, but he has failed instead to use quantitative easing with imagination to impact at the base of the economy. Moreover he loves to meddle in the everyday running of the government and acts as de-facto Tory party Chairman. He should be given that job full time. Baroness Warsi is unelected and a political lightweight. Her pleas to stay must be ignored.
Who then for Chancellor? Not William Hague. He did not shine as Shadow Chancellor and will not prove imaginative if given the job for real. There are two names for Cameron to consider. Both are able and tell it how it is. They come from opposite wings of the Tory Party. The first is the left wing, pro Europe, successful former Chancellor, Ken Clarke. The second is the right wing, euro-sceptic untried but very clever John Redwood. Clarke would give the government a human face and show that it listens and cares. Redwood would show the markets and the world that the government means business. Cameron must decide what he needs to do to lift his party from the one term certainty into which it is settling. Many fear he will decide to do nothing at the point where it matters and tinker instead at the margins where it doesn’t.
Ed Milliband has a simpler prospect before him. Kick out Balls and Cooper and replace them with Alistair Darling and Chuka Umunna. Darling was the Chancellor who got us through the financial crisis. Umunna is the next leader of the Labour party and likely to be the UK’s first black Prime Minister.
And Clegg? The function of Deputy Prime Minister, unrecognised by the Constitution, is always a political appointment, rarely a success and easily redundant. It is redundant now. The Liberal Democrats are fed up with Clegg’s waffling, his constitutional reform brief is a shambles and he is fast becoming a political non-person. Cameron must either give him a department to run (how about the Home Office?) or face the very real prospect that Vince Cable will become leader of his coalition partners. Maybe that would suit Cameron better. If so he can speed the process. He could do as Churchill did with the peace plotting Halifax and send Clegg as ambassador, not this time to Washington, but instead to Moscow. He speaks five languages, including Russian. He could transform our relationship with the world’s most misunderstood and underrated power. That would earn him a worthy place in history. It would also clear the decks for Vince. That could be very good for the government.