Sunak should act like England at the World Cup and reshuffle his pack

AS RUGBY managers make changes to their teams in a hugely competitive World Cup, should Rishi Sunak not apply some of the discipline of top sport to his ministerial line-up?

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Only weeks ahead of their opening game in Paris, England replaced no fewer than nine of the 15 men scheduled to start in their final warm-up match. It didn't help then but after a string of heavy losses it had to be done.

And last weekend, that refreshed squad defied the critics and beat a formidable opponent almost everyone had expected to win.

Sport is brutal, not only for the obvious physical challenges, but because of the honesty it demands about every player's performance. We can all see if someone misses a tackle, drops the ball or scores a try, and digital tags now fit between every player's shoulder blades recording a range of data from speed to distance to energy levels. There's nowhere to hide.

Imagine that in politics. Instead of power and pace, grunt work and glory, you'd measure administrative competence, delivery on the key challenges, contribution to the agreed game plan and media performance.