Cameron can revive Tories

AS the Tories struggle in the opinion polls, Rishi Sunak has faced a mounting barrage of calls to show more boldness.

- 73 Leo McKinstry

Well, he has certainly fulfilled that demand with his sensational Cabinet reshuffle.

In normal circumstances, the sacking of the Home Secretary Suella Braverman would have been controversial enough in itself to dominate the news agenda.

But even this move was eclipsed by the electrifying decision to appoint David Cameron Foreign Secretary and elevate him to House of Lords.

Not since 1982, when Lord Carrington was the Foreign Secretary, has one of the great offices of state been held by a peer.

What makes Cameron's comeback even more significant is the rarity of a former prime minister returning to the Cabinet.

Indeed, throughout the 20th century, this happened only three times, with the trio made up of: Arthur Balfour, who became Foreign Secretary in 1915, a decade after he lost the premiership; Neville Chamberlain, who lent his support to Churchill before he died in November 1940; and Alec Douglas-Home, who served at the Foreign Office under Ted Heath in the early Seventies.

On the Right of the Tory party, Braverman's supporters are in despair, believing that the combination of her dismissal and Cameron's restoration will drag the party into the quagmire of soggy liberalism, just when the public is crying out for robust action on crime and immigration.

One Tory MP yesterday expressed "alarm" about Sunak's embrace of Cameron, which would mean "turning back the clock" to the failed centre-Left consensus.