Liz Truss’s cabinet selection favours loyalty over substance

She needs to get things done and quickly and wants to avoid the delays that ministerial friction will bring, writes Salma Shah

Liz Truss may come to regret putting together a Government Omitting Any Talent, the clear new meaning of GOATs (Getty)

Every PM does it. Once elected, the sugar rush they get from victory makes them feel invincible. And they always make the same errors as a result: limiting the number of political advisers to curtail ambitious ministers, centralising processes to have micromanaging oversight over irrelevant aspects of government and, recently, rewarding loyalty and not promoting talent.

Liz Truss, our new leader, may come to regret putting together a Government Omitting Any Talent, the clear new meaning of GOATs. As permanent secretaries up and down Whitehall photograph themselves in awkward handshakes with their new charges they must all by secretly crying on the inside, wondering how they will help their country with such an inexperienced team.

Truss has opted to spurn unity – something the party so desperately needs to deliver in favour of rewarding supporters and loyalists. The urge to do this is natural; not only is it about having a top team you trust, but there is a logic in stamping one’s authority on government. She needs to get things done quickly and wants to avoid the delays that ministerial friction will bring.

But these appointments are within her gift, what is not are the good wishes of the backbenches. And with so many big beasts sitting behind her she may well feel their ire when her plans and objectives start to falter. And falter they will, because that is the nature of this job. Reaching across the divide is an equally compelling self-preservation exercise.

That said, it’s not just about Liz Truss’s judgement. The problem is really in recruitment. People don’t like politics so they don’t take it seriously and the talent pool is woefully limited. This is not intended to be personal, but some of the cabinet have very meagre CVs and it will show when they are asked to make some very tough decisions. Indeed, it will challenge them in professional, psychological and emotional ways.

There will be no training, no guidance and little in the way of professional development. The assumption is that in order to get a job in cabinet, you bring some serious heft with you. It is a system that assumes the decision maker is clever, talented and experienced, and that just isn’t true for so many of those who have just been overpromoted.

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And it’s not just the cabinet. The civil service has been depleted of talent in recent years. Simon Case is a prime example of someone dangerously inexperienced for the position he held. There is a suggestion that he too may decide to move on at this time, but who comes in to replace him? And if the civil service is there to give impartial and honest advice it needs its independence, will the selection of a cabinet secretary by the new PM be just another way to shut down creative conflict that may lead to better decision making?

Westminster reshuffles leave many people aghast at how politicians get their jobs. In business, recruitment, talent retention and skills development are critical to the health and security of a company – the processes are invested in because ultimately you need the best people to do the job. Years of personal animosities and pent-up frustration has meant those deemed suitable are reduced to a paranoid sense of finding people who are “one of us”, underlining the insecurities and paranoia that have become constant features of governments in recent times.

Good leadership is not afraid of challenges, it welcomes them. And as much as we need urgent action we also need the right actions. A cabinet of yes-men puts pay to all the diversity that is rightly being celebrated and will leave us, the British public wondering whether we have the right people for the job.