The woman who, somehow, is still the Prime Minister has accidentally disclosed Number Ten’s hiring protocol. The PM is only allowed to fire ministers who are less competent than she is herself.
The reasons are obvious. An incompetent underling should be removed, on the grounds that you could do a better job yourself. But if the reverse were the case, the subordinate has grounds to argue his or her case, and win. It’s democracy in action.
Case in point: David Davis. This is a man promoted well beyond his abilities, yet remaining in post. A man with little apparent grasp of the fundamentals of his job, and lacking the work ethic to amend this. Still when clashing with May about the NI backstop issue, his threat to resign must have made May back down. A stronger leader might have called his bluff, or imposed her will.
The only Will that May seems to exert is the much-abused Will of the People, that tenuous and quite probably illegitimate justification for her government’s ruinous policy.
This explains why Jeremy C. Hunt was promoted, not sacked. It explains why Liam Fox continues to rack up the air miles. It explains why Boris Johnson still has a job, however hard he tries to get fired.
Amber Rudd went because she was not competent enough to sort out the mess May, her predecessor, left for her. Damian Green had to go because pornography is one of the few remaining taboos for government ministers. Ignore the fact that if Green had been caught having sex, not merely watching it, everything would have been fine and dandy.
In fact it seems that the government is an arch in inverse, with the keystone at the bottom. If May cracks, the whole show will collapse about her ears. May surely knows this, she is not stupid. So who is holding her in place? The unelected, unaccountable plutocrats who are gagging for the hardest possible Brexit, which will give them a big pay day and allow them to continue to dodge their tax liabilities?
May is incapable of standing up to the bullies in and behind her cabinet, and unable to stand up for the principles she believes in.
Doubtless this was why she was permitted to become PM.