Theresa May’s reshuffle leaves more questions than answers

Theresa May’s New Year reshuffle was supposed to be a chance for the beleaguered British prime minister to stamp her authority on a mutinous party. However, during a sometimes farcical day when announcements of appointments on social media were reversed within minutes, at the end of Monday Mrs May continued to look weak and directionless.

The prime minister had set out to sake up her top team, and replace the former first secretary of state and effective deputy PM, Damien Green, who quit in December for having lied about an investigation into him. David Lidington, the former justice secretary was moved to replace Mr Green in his roles but not his title of first secretary.

Then the Northern Ireland secretary James Brokenshire resigned for health reasons, leaving one of the trickiest posts in the cabinet open. He was replaced by the culture secretary, Karen Bradley, who will take on the difficult task of attempting to resolve the impasse in the province between the Democratic Unionists and Sinn Fein which has seen no administration there for a year.

Mrs Bradley leaves her successor, Matt Hancock, with the responsibility for overseeing the bid by Rupert Murdoch’s family to take over the parts of the Sky TV network that they don’t already own, a hot potato given the support for the Conservative party by Mr Murdoch’s newspapers.

But the biggest shocks of the day came when two cabinet refused to move from their posts and forced Mrs May to allow them to remain in post. It was widely briefed that Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary who is under fire for the current NHS winter crisis, would be moved to the business, energy and industry department.

However the incumbent in that job, Greg Clark, refused to move, as did Mr Hunt, so Mrs May was left with no choice but to leave them in their positions. Mr Hunt even saw the addition of the social care brief to his remit, while journalists heaped opprobrium on Mr Clark, who has a questionable reputation in Westminster:And the final indignation, so far, came when the education secretary Justine Greening arrived at 10 Downing Street and spent two hours with the PM, before eventually leaving the government after being offered the position of work and pensions secretary, which she turned down. She was replaced by rising star Damian Hinds.

Ms Greening represents a pro-Remain constituency and saw her majority slashed in last year’s election as affluent voters in her London seat of Putney punished the Tories for Brexit. Many commentators on Twitter foresaw that she could become a thorn in Mrs May’s side if she joined the growing ranks of pro-European backbencher rebels.