Liz Truss is preparing to appoint the first cabinet in history in which none of the great offices of state will be held by a white man.
Though Truss, 47, will not learn if she is to be Britain’s new prime minister until today, her commanding poll leads mean she and her aides have spent weeks discussing the make-up of her cabinet.
Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, is certain to be chancellor. The Eton-educated son of Ghanaian immigrants, Kwarteng, 47, only received his first cabinet job in January last year but has been a close ally of Truss since they entered the Commons together in 2010.
Truss is likely to appoint James Cleverly as foreign secretary. Before his appointment in the decaying hours of Boris Johnson’s government as education secretary — the third in three days — Cleverly, 52, had been a junior minister at the Foreign Office, acting effectively as Truss’s deputy. Cleverly’s mother came from Sierra Leone.
The role of home secretary is thought to have been earmarked for Suella Braverman, 42, the attorney-general and former leadership contender. Braverman’s mother was born in Mauritius, and her father came to Britain from Kenya.
Kwarteng, Cleverly and Braverman are among only 11 black or Asian MPs to have attended the cabinet. It was not until 2014 that Sajid Javid became the first non-white Conservative MP to join the cabinet.
Yet Kwarteng would be the fourth to be chancellor in a row, after Javid, Rishi Sunak and Nadhim Zahawi, while Braverman would be third to be home secretary in a row following Javid and Priti Patel.
“The most striking thing is how ordinary and how extraordinary it is at the same time,” Sunder Katwala, the director of British Future, a think tank which specialises in immigration and integration, said. “This is an extraordinary pace of change even in two or three years, never mind a decade.”
Katwala credited David Cameron, who was Conservative leader when Kwarteng, Cleverly and Braverman entered the Commons. “He sped up something which would have happened eventually but wouldn’t have happened at the pace it did without him deciding that that was the future of his party,” Katwala said.
Aside from the great offices, one of the biggest decisions Truss will face is how many Sunak supporters to include in her cabinet. Six cabinet ministers backed Sunak. Dominic Raab, the deputy prime minister, was the most vocal, deriding Truss’s tax plans as an “electoral suicide note”. He is likely to find himself on the back benches.
Other Sunak supporters who have been less personal, such as Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, may find greater favour. Robert Jenrick, the former housing secretary who is close to Sunak but overlapped with Truss when they were both Treasury ministers under Theresa May, is tipped to return.
Sunak has effectively ruled out serving under Truss, saying he learnt as Johnson’s chancellor that cabinet ministers need to agree with the prime minister on “the big things”. Other leadership rivals will be in Truss’s team, though. Kemi Badenoch, previously a junior minister at the levelling-up department, will become a secretary of state. Zahawi is expected to run the Cabinet Office.
Tom Tugendhat, who has never held ministerial office, is likely to have a seat at the cabinet table. Penny Mordaunt, who came close to beating Truss into third place, is expected to receive a job.
Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, who endorsed Truss early in the membership phase, is expected to stay in post. Thérèse Coffey, the work and pensions secretary, who managed Truss’s campaign in the parliamentary stages, is the frontrunner to be health secretary. Jacob Rees-Mogg, who gave Truss’s campaign crucial backing from Johnson loyalists when he supported her early on, is expected to succeed Kwarteng as business secretary. Simon Clarke, chief secretary to the Treasury, is expected to join the cabinet’s main ranks, potentially as levelling-up secretary. Brandon Lewis, the former Northern Ireland secretary, could become the justice secretary. Wendy Morton could be the chief whip.
Sir Robert Buckland, the Wales secretary, who defected from Sunak’s campaign, could be rewarded by being kept in the cabinet. Jake Berry, the chairman of the Northern Research Group, is being talked up as party chairman. Michelle Donelan and Edward Argar are being discussed for education, while Sir Iain Duncan Smith was floated for Northern Ireland or leader of the House.
Sunak silent on future as MP if top job eludes him
Rishi Sunak declined to say whether he will stand again as an MP if he loses the Tory leadership race, as expected (Geraldine Scott writes).
The former chancellor, who was elected in 2015 as the MP for Richmond in North Yorkshire, said it would be “presumptuous” for him to say he would stand at the next election.
Speaking to Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg on BBC1, Sunak said he would continue as an MP if he lost the contest and paid tribute to Tory party members in his seat. But asked if he could guarantee he would stand again, he said: “It’s presumptuous for me to say because I have to get selected by my own members. But I was with them on Friday night and it’s been a great privilege to represent them. And I know I can do good work for them.”
There has been speculation that the former hedge fund manager could return to the private sector if he loses out to Truss. Of being an MP, he said: “I’d love to keep doing that as long as they’ll have me.”
He did not rule out one day taking another shot at No 10, saying: “Oh gosh. We’ve just finished this campaign.
“So, I’d say . . . I need to recover from this one. But I look forward to supporting the Conservative government in whatever capacity.”
Asked if that meant yes, he said: “No, gosh. No, no, no. I think my job now is just to support a Conservative government. That’s what I want to see succeed and that’s what I’ll do.”
Defending his time in business in California, Sunak said it was that very experience which would make him a good prime minister. “Because what I will bring to this job is a way of thinking that is different,” he said. “And when we think about growth, in a modern economy, how do you drive growth? You drive it through innovation.”
