Theresa May's key cabinet members set to keep their jobs
Theresa May’s top team are set to keep her jobs, as Downing Street revealed several members of the Cabinet are staying in the same posts.
Chancellor Philip Hammond, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, Home Secretary Amber Rudd, Defence Secretary Michael Fallon and Brexit Secretary David Davis will all keep their roles, Downing Street said.
Mrs May faced the wrath of her party in the aftermath of a disastrous election result, with many seeing it as a failed gamble.
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The result left the PM with limited room to re-shape her top team, contrary to speculation before the election that an increased majority could see several key members, particularly Mr Hammond, vulnerable during a predicted cabinet reshuffle.
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson – who was mooted as the next Prime Minister at one point during the election results – welcomed the news of his reappointment, tweeting: “Delighted to be reappointed Foreign Secretary. Lots of great work to do for greatest country on earth. Let’s get cracking for Global Britain.”
Mrs May resisted calls to resign in the wake of the shock result, which destroyed her majority in parliament.
Instead she set about shoring up her grip on power, announcing plans to work with the Democratic Unionists (DUP), whose 10 MPs would give her a working majority.
The news comes as criticism of Mrs May’s election campaign spread to the Prime Minister’s closest advisors, with Tory MPs hitting out at co-chiefs of staff, Fiona Hill and Nick Timothy.
Predicting that Mrs May has six months left in Downing Street, South Cambridgeshire MP Heidi Allen told LBC: “Frankly, if a leader picks people who advise them so badly, and cannot see that they are being advised so badly, then that tells me, I’m afraid, that that’s not the leader that we need.
“Clearly, they weren’t the right people and therefore, by default, to me that means the whole leadership organisation just isn’t functioning properly because it is not responding.
“The voters are our customers. Clearly we got our product wrong which tells me that the sales team have got it wrong as well.”
And Totnes Tory MP Sarah Wollaston tweeted: “I cannot see how the inner circle of special advisers can continue in post.”
The ConservativeHome website, edited by former MP Paul Goodman, said the “consensus view” among Tory backbenchers and ministers was that Ms Hill and Mr Timothy – who has been closely linked to plans branded the ‘dementia tax’ – “must go”.