Sunak reshuffle shows he’s done with playing it safe – but sacked cabinet member is already discussing leadership ‘play’

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.

When it comes to Rishi Sunak’s reset, it appears to be third time lucky as the prime minister sought to take back control of his ailing premiership.

Sacking Suella Braverman as home secretary only to bring back former prime minister David Cameron as foreign secretary was a genuine “marmalade dropper” moment – no one was expecting that.

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Finally, after months of seeming on the ropes, Mr Sunak appears to be putting up a fight.

Bumping along the bottom, many in his own party had been doubting whether this premiership was ever going to get going, particularly after reset moment number one – party conference – and then number two – the King’s Speech – failed to get off the ground.

“This reshuffle is bolder than anyone thought,” says one former cabinet minister.

“The boldness is there, even if there is incredulity at some of his moves.”

A Sunak loyalist believes the PM is finally grasping the nettle, saying: “He needed to shake things up and show who he is.”

To that end, he is clearing out some of those who were put into his cabinet for party management reasons, when he was made prime minister just over a year ago.

His insubordinate home secretary, who he has been forced to defend repeatedly over the past year, is out – while Liz Truss’s former deputy Therese Coffey has also had to make way for Sunak supporters at the top table.

Downing Street insiders say this reshuffle, in the making for weeks, is all about showing unity and purpose around the PM and bringing together a cabinet where “competence is king”.

He is promoting his key supporters to key positions as he gets the cabinet on to an election footing, with James Cleverly now in place to lead on his small boats pledge and Vicky Atkins promoted to health secretary, with the NHS a key battleground – and weak spot – going into the general election.

Another key ally, Laura Trott, is put into the Treasury as the deputy to Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, while long-term ally John Glen moves over to the Cabinet Office to help deputy PM Oliver Dowden with delivery.

But while the prime minister has captured attention by bringing back a former prime minister in this bold reshuffle, it is not without risk.

One former cabinet minister tells me that Mr Cameron will relish the chance to reinvent himself on the world stage, but there is a risk for Mr Sunak of being outshone by the former leader’s charisma.

That said, Mr Cameron comes with plenty of baggage too – from disagreeing with Mr Sunak’s position on HS2 and cutting the overseas aid budget, to his role in the biggest lobbying scandal in Britain for decades.

The Financial Times revealed Mr Cameron had secretly lobbied former colleagues in government on behalf of his employer Greensill Capital, which Labour seized on within minutes of the announcement of Mr Cameron’s return.

There is also the matter of an even more disgruntled party, as ambitious MPs despair of a PM who can’t find anyone in the current crop of MPs to take over as foreign secretary.

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Meanwhile, the right wing of the party looks on in alarm as this socially conservative prime minister, who looked to be tacking to the right – be it on immigration or drawing dividing lines on gender wars – places his flag very much on the centre ground, with the green-loving, socially liberal, centre-ground David Cameron – the new right-hand man of the prime minister.

Read more:
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While the One Nation group of Tories believes it is getting its party back, the right are feeling very much left out in the cold.

The New Conservative grouping of right-wingers including Suella Braverman, Sir John Hayes, Miriam Cates and Danny Kruger are meeting later with, according to one source, the issue of Braverman’s leadership “play” on the agenda.

That doesn’t mean an outright bid now, but the intent is clear. As one of her supporters put it to me over the weekend: “There is upside if she leaves government. From her point of view, it would be easier. She’s spending eight hours a day on necessary and difficult issues, so she doesn’t get a lot of space.

“Suella’s gone from the attorney general who nobody heard of to the home secretary everybody’s heard of. If she were Queen over the water, she’d have papers covering her everyday.”

What everyone can agree with is that the prime minister, with little left to lose, is done with playing it safe.

This is one of his last rolls of the dice. Some may say it’s a “hail Mary” pass for a leader so far behind in the polls and a party now potentially fracturing even more. Unity in the new cabinet, maybe, but what happens on the backbenchers?

To evoke a thought from the old regime, Dominic Cummings was a keen student of Chinese military strategist and philosopher Sun Tzu, who argued that surprise brings victory and the PM today has confounded his opponents.

Whether it brings anything approaching even a shot at victory is an entirely different matter, but he’s signalled in this reshuffle he’s back in the game.