Let The Change Begin... Ooh, Aah!

"Out with the old air, in with the new. Out with the old air, in with the new." Now Gordon is giving us all a chance to experience the wonderful feeling he shared with Tony. Loony leftie Susan Press says this is her "nightmare cabinet". Well done Gordon! Already giving nightmares to Labour Briefingites, after only one day in the job. Commenting on Dave Osler's blog she says this "Has to be the most right-wing Labour Cabinet EVER". This is probably technically correct. Me, I'm having a fantastic day and looking forward to the next 10 years.

Meanwhile, Unity of The Ministry of Truth has published the following cynical analysis of the Cabinet changes in a comment on the self-same post on Dave Osler's blog:

The Justice/Home Secretary combo of Straw and Smith is an effective downgrade in importance for the Home Office, especially is Smith keeps her head down below the parapet and stick to straightening out the messes rather than issuing the traditional crap Friday press releases.

That effective pushes Basher Davis down the pecking order in terms of profile, which ain't going to go down well with him.

Splitting education leaves Cameron with the option of giving Two Brains half his old job or moving him on, right after the grammar school spat, which makes it difficult to move him without there being some negative briefing as payback for pissing of the Thatcherite faithful, unless he gets a plum job, which'll piss the Thatcherites off even more.

Johnson to health is trouble for Cameron as Lansley's such a cretin he made Patsy look good in the Commons. Johnson is by all accounts a bit of slippery bugger but has a good line of patter when it comes to placating the professionals, which will play well at heath.

Kelly's in a Ministry where the Opus Dei thing is irrelevant, unless she starts dispensing blessings to JCBs.

All Woodward has to do is babysit Paisley and McGuinness/Adams and referee the odd fight.

Milliband (D) has Blair on the loose in the Middle East and the UN guy who makes a career out of pissing off the Yanks, so he's in a kill or cure situation.

The Poison Dwarf speaks fluent and incomprehensible management bullshit like a pro - and so does most of local government so that's match and the regional minister thing is part to piss off the English Parliament lot and part to pull heads in at the Government Offices, which will choke off some of Blears' ground.

Oh, and Buff's a cockroach and widely thought a grovelling toerag to those above him and a bullying thug and major boor to those below, which makes him the perfect Chief Whip. Dumb and dull-witted but takes orders - perfect NCO material.

Seems a bit hard to me. To suggest that Gordon has such Machiavellian strengths seems totally fanciful. I'm sure he doesn't really think like that. You might as well suggest that Gordon deliberately f****d the LibDems by offering them senior Cabinet posts and cunningly threw the Tories into turmoil by seizing even more of their ground and absorbing some of their most abnoxious slimeballs into the Party.