The former PM is back in the cabinet after Suella Braverman’s sacking. It goes to show how few options Rishi Sunak has left
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.
Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist
