Rishi Sunak’s government is testing the limits of the word ‘unity’

Gavin Williamson will not be the last to leave the Sunak administration, writes Andrew Woodcock

Coming into office as a new prime minister after 12 years of your party holding power guarantees that you will have a lot of baggage dragging you down (Reuters)

The rapid departure of Gavin Williamson from cabinet after just 14 days is not only destabilising to Rishi Sunak’s new premiership, but illustrative of a wider issue that is almost certain to cause the prime minister major headaches further down the road.

To put it simply, coming into office as a new prime minister after 12 years of your party holding power guarantees that you will have a lot of baggage dragging you down. A PM who wins power in a general election – as Tony Blair and David Cameron did – arrives at the head of a team of people who have been working together towards that goal for years.

The appointment of a cabinet is often simply a matter of transferring individuals from their shadow roles to the same briefs in government – though this was complicated for Cameron by the need to share out jobs with his Liberal Democrat coalition partners.