Boris Johnson's young, diverse and energetic new cabinet is hugely refreshing

The pundits and journalists all quickly agreed. Boris Johnson’s cabinet was right-wing, pro-Brexit, and a dramatic (some said “revolutionary”) break with what had gone before. 

That’s what they all said. It’s more interesting, though, to see what they didn’t say. Not one well-known pundit pointed out that three of the great offices of state had gone to outsiders: Raab’s father was a Jewish refugee, who came from Czechoslovakia in 1938; Sajid Javid’s father was a Muslim bus driver from Pakistan; Priti Patel’s parents were Ugandan Asians. So, both Raab and Patel were not just the children of immigrants. They were the children of refugees. A world away from the Bullingdon Club.

There is so much talk about how right-wing they are that it is easy to miss how diverse they are. Three people of Asian origin (Javid, Patel and Rishi Sunak), two of African origin (Kwasi Kwarteng and James Cleverly who will both attend cabinet), two Jews (Raab and Grant Shapps) and seven women. 

It’s also a very young cabinet. As Michael Crick pointed out on Twitter, there is no one over sixty – in stark contrast to Labour’s shadow cabinet with nine over sixty. This isn’t a trivial point. After almost a decade in power, the Conservative government under Theresa May was looking distinctly burnt out. Some had also served in the shadow cabinet under Cameron. Years of pressure and hard work take their toll. Compare the photos of Blair and Brown in 1997 with when they left office. It wasn’t just that they were older, they were ground down by years of government. 

There was something else about May’s cabinet that no one pointed out. It was full of dead wood. Of course, there were good ministers who were lost, some were very good indeed. But most of these resigned on questions of principle. And what can one say of Karen Bradley, Chris Grayling, Patrick McLoughlin and Philip Hammond, who had his virtues as Chancellor but so lacked charisma that he had to be hidden away during the 2017 election? Pundits went on about how brutal the cuts were, but the only surprising dismissals they could come up with were Hunt and Penny Mordaunt.   

Much was made of the fact that only two cabinet members had the same job as under May (Matt Hancock and Stephen Barclay). But almost twenty of Johnson’s appointments had served under Cameron and/or May. This is not an inexperienced cabinet. Johnson was Foreign Secretary under May for two terms and Mayor of London for two terms. Patel, Javid and Raab all had previous cabinet experience. Gove, Barclay, Hancock, Leadsom, Truss and Rudd all had major positions under May. A former minister said on Newsnight this was more backbench than frontbench. Nonsense. It would be true of Corbyn’s shadow cabinet, full of life’s backbenchers. Perhaps only Starmer would have been appointed by Blair or Brown. The rest are like something from the Earl of Derby’s infamous “Who? Who?” cabinet.

This explains why accusations that the new cabinet is “so right-wing” are dubious. Continuity is as striking as discontinuity. Of course, Remainers have been largely (though not entirely) purged. This has been the most dramatic single feature of the new cabinet. But Johnson might argue that one of the chronic problems that bedevilled the May government was the split between Remainers and Leavers which undermined any sense of unity of purpose. A minority government, faced with trying to steer controversial legislation through a hostile Parliament, will need to be completely united. That is one of the key lessons of the May years. She could neither inspire nor enforce unity. 

Of course, Johnson made mistakes. Losing Hunt, in the middle of rising tensions with Iran, was a bizarre decision. Many criticised his decision to remove Mordaunt from a position to which she seemed eminently suited. And others might wonder why he didn’t bring in media-friendly veterans, like Michael Fallon or Andrew Mitchell. Is James Cleverly really the ideal party chairman? 

However, many big decisions are right. The cabinet is young, diverse, ideologically united, and hugely experienced. Not a bad start.