The Prime Minister knew he needed practitioners of Westminster’s dark arts to make up for his own lack of political skills
Rishi Sunak might come to regret not fighting harder to keep Gavin Williamson around his ministerial top table.
The Prime Minister knew he needed someone like Williamson – a figure modelled on the scheming Francis Urquhart from the House of Cards TV series – to make up for his own lack of political skills.
Williamson was one of five – count ’em – former chief whips appointed to the Cabinet. The idea was that these grey beards were there to help the PM deliver the 2019 manifesto ahead of the next election in two years’ time.
Instead Sunak has lost one of the practitioners of Westminster’s dark arts, who had made his name as being David Cameron’s eyes and ears as his Parliamentary aide when he was in 10 Downing Street.