00:00 Hi, I'm John Rental.
00:01 After Rishi Sunak sacked Suella Braverman
00:04 and hired David Cameron,
00:06 the Independent asked you for your questions
00:08 about Rishi Sunak's cabinet reshuffle.
00:11 Let's see what you asked.
00:12 Zend19, usual spelling, said,
00:19 "When Sunak used his prerogative
00:22 "to appoint Cameron to the Lords,
00:24 "did he intend to annoy Nadine Dorris,
00:27 "or was that just a bonus?"
00:28 I suspect that's a rhetorical question.
00:31 It was interesting that Rishi Sunak
00:33 appointed David Cameron through the Lords.
00:36 It's been done before.
00:38 Peter Mandelson was brought into Gordon Brown's cabinet
00:41 via the House of Lords.
00:42 Nadine Dorris obviously created quite a lot of damage
00:46 by her sulk at not getting a peerage
00:50 on Boris Johnson's resignation honours list.
00:52 I think she was a bit hard done by
00:54 because I don't think anybody actually explained
00:56 until it was too late.
00:57 She couldn't get a deferred peerage,
01:00 that she had to resign as an MP
01:01 if she wanted to go to the House of Lords,
01:03 and I don't think that option was ever put to her.
01:05 So yeah, she's entitled to be a bit annoyed.
01:07 Swizzle asks, "John, in your opinion,
01:11 "why did so many Conservative MPs
01:13 "step down from ministerial positions?"
01:15 That is a very interesting question.
01:16 I thought one of the significant aspects of the reshuffle
01:19 was that a large number of mid-ranking ministers,
01:24 many of them really quite good in my opinion,
01:26 stood down from office,
01:28 thus weakening the government, I think.
01:31 People like Jesse Norman in the Transport Department,
01:34 Neil O'Brien, another very clever policy-driven minister
01:39 in the Health Department,
01:40 and Nick Gibb, who's one of the longest-serving
01:43 schools ministers and very responsible for
01:47 very important reforms,
01:49 bringing in phonics in primary schools.
01:52 Responsible for, I think,
01:54 a huge leap in teaching young children.
01:56 All those ministers stood down.
01:59 I think that's because they sense the end is coming,
02:02 the government's heading for defeat.
02:03 They met in the corridor, sort of metaphorically speaking,
02:06 other ministers coming in, such as David Cameron
02:09 and Andrea Leadsom, who think that, you know,
02:11 they might as well be ministers for a year,
02:14 even if it's only going to be a year.
02:17 But I think the net effect is to weaken the government.
02:19 Alex Black asks, "Do you think David Cameron
02:22 doing next-to-no politics for seven years
02:25 makes it harder to be foreign secretary
02:27 than, you know, say it was a newly elected government?"
02:30 I think that is an interesting question.
02:32 Actually, I, you know, whatever I think of David Cameron
02:36 and my opinion of him has gone down over the years.
02:39 One thing you could say about him
02:41 was that he's very, very quick.
02:43 He's a, you know, he absorbs a brief very quickly.
02:49 He worked incredibly hard as prime minister.
02:51 A lot of people didn't give him credit for that
02:53 because he had this reputation
02:55 for being the chillax prime minister,
02:57 which I thought was unfair.
02:59 He used to get up very early, work through his red boxes.
03:02 The contrast with Boris Johnson was very striking.
03:07 So, no, I think David Cameron will pick up very quickly
03:11 as foreign secretary and will work hard
03:15 at making all the international connections,
03:17 renewing all the international connections
03:19 he made as prime minister.
03:20 Paul Gillian asks,
03:22 "Given what's happening in Gaza and Ukraine
03:25 and an election in at most a year's time,
03:28 are there any wider implications
03:30 to David Cameron's appointment other than signalling?
03:33 It sounds like the Foreign Office to-do list
03:36 is already written."
03:37 I think that's underestimating the possibility
03:41 that unexpected things will happen over the next year.
03:43 I mean, the idea that David Cameron's just going to sort of
03:45 sit there and do what officials have already prepared for him,
03:49 I think is a little unlikely.
03:52 And, you know, the one thing you can say about David Cameron
03:55 is that he does have a lot of political experience.
03:59 And I think Rishi Sunak can trust him to just get on
04:02 with the business of being foreign secretary
04:06 and dealing with international crises,
04:07 freeing him, Rishi Sunak,
04:10 for the domestic agenda in an election year.
04:13 Councillor Ross Armour asks,
04:16 "Forget David Cameron.
04:17 What does it say about the rest of the parliamentary
04:20 Conservative Party that not one of their MPs
04:23 is deemed competent enough to be foreign secretary?"
04:26 I think that's a simplification.
04:28 I think Rishi Sunak wanted to bring in
04:31 a respected, reassuring figure.
04:35 I mean, obviously in the short term,
04:36 he wanted to distract from the antics of Isoela Braverman,
04:40 didn't want her departure to be the big story.
04:44 But I think in the longer term,
04:45 he wanted to strengthen the government
04:47 with someone who had a lot of experience.
04:51 I mean, one of the complaints that people have
04:54 about this government is that the turnover of ministers
04:57 has been so high that very few of them have built up
05:01 the experience and the competence necessary.
05:05 So bringing back someone such as David Cameron,
05:08 who has a lot of experience, a lot of contacts already,
05:12 understands politics at quite a deep level,
05:15 I think that there's a good argument for bringing him back.
05:18 I mean, obviously you don't want to bring too many
05:20 unelected lords into the cabinet,
05:23 but one or two appointments, I think, is a sound idea.
05:27 And our last question, Stephen asks,
05:29 "Why did Isoela Braverman stay in the government
05:32 if she disagreed fundamentally with its policies?
05:36 I'm afraid Braverman does not come out of this well."
05:39 I think that's a very fair point.
05:41 I mean, if you read Isoela Braverman's letter,
05:44 you think that her disagreements with Rishi Sunak
05:47 were so fundamental that she must have realised before now
05:52 that he wasn't doing what she expected him to do.
05:58 She would say that she was giving him a chance
06:01 to live up to the deal that they allegedly did
06:05 when she became Home Secretary.
06:08 But really, if she disagreed with him that deeply,
06:12 she should have resigned on principle
06:13 instead of waiting to be sacked.
06:14 And I think her letter portrays her as weak and petulant,
06:22 complaining about the mechanics of a deal,
06:26 a sort of a backroom deal,
06:29 instead of really standing up for her principles.
06:32 And I sort of agree with that question.
06:34 Thank you for watching You Ask the Questions.
06:37 You can find more episodes on Independent TV.
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