Boris Johnson is at the peak of his power – and has no idea what to do with it

Ministers who have been distracted for weeks now have room to breathe again, writes John Rentoul, as power flows back from the centre to the departments

‘The thing about prime ministerial power is that once it has been used, it has gone’ (AP)

Boris Johnson used a wider than expected reshuffle to assert his authority, but beyond a slight shift in favour of competence the changes signified very little.

Obviously, it is better to have a foreign secretary who enjoys travelling than one who doesn’t, and Nadhim Zahawi cannot do a worse job at the education department than his predecessor. But today’s ministerial appointments signal no great change in direction for the government.

There are no great problems facing the government that this reshuffle seems intended to solve, except possibly the revolt of the nimbys against Robert Jenrick’s plan to build all over southern England. Moving Michael Gove to the housing department may mean that the impossible tension between the prime minister’s target for mass house-building and the resistance of existing residents might be handled more imaginatively, but it is never going to be resolved. If Gove really was “bored” in his troubleshooting job at the Cabinet Office at the centre of government, as has been reported, he is going to regret not being more careful in what he wished for.