Rishi’s reshuffle is a gamble with his own future – and the future of the Conservative Party

Editorial: No one dreamed Rishi Sunak would have the audacity, bottle, chutzpah – call it what you will – to put David Cameron back in the cabinet

Cameron and Cleverly may provide Sunak with the loyalty he needs in the run up to a difficult election (Getty/PA/Reuters)

No one will ever be able to call Rishi Sunak dull again. He has gambled his own and the Conservative Party’s future on one of the most remarkable cabinet reshuffles in recent times.

Some thought the cautious former banker would lack the nerve to take on the Tory right by sacking their darling Suella Braverman, whose dismissal The Independent repeatedly called for. After her heartless remarks that homelessness was a “lifestyle choice” for some, and her undermining of the police’s operational independence, the now former home secretary got what she deserved and, as far as we are concerned, will not be missed.

No one dreamed Mr Sunak would have the audacity, bottle, chutzpah – call it what you will – to put David Cameron back in the cabinet. His surprise comeback as foreign secretary was met with joy by Tory moderates who regard Ms Braverman’s reckless approach as downright dangerous – and see Mr Cameron as the late lamented flag bearer of mainstream Tory centrism.

But the moves are a red rag to hardline Tory right-wingers. They view Ms Braverman as the party’s next leader and regard Mr Cameron, king of the Remainers, with contempt. If Mr Sunak is lurching to the centre, we welcome it; the right-wing tail has wagged the Tory dog for too long. His critics on the right should acknowledge that the party needs to appeal to the “blue wall” in the South as well as the red wall in the North and Midlands.

However, the changes provide plenty of ammunition for Labour, who will argue the reshuffle is the latest evidence that the Tories have run out of steam. Mr Sunak does give the impression he is thrashing around. Only a month ago, it seemed, he regarded Mr Cameron as part of a failed, 30-year status quo, while his new foreign secretary criticised Mr Sunak’s decision to scrap the Birmingham to Manchester leg of HS2. They have also clashed over the government’s decision to suspend the spending of 0.7 per cent of gross national income on overseas aid. Let us hope Mr Cameron restores it.

Mr Sunak, who already had a “democratic deficit” as he lacked a mandate from the public or Tory party members, has made a nonsense of democracy by creating a life peerage for Mr Cameron, who will not be accountable to MPs. The Commons rules should now be changed so that he can be questioned regularly by MPs, perhaps in the mini-chamber in Westminster Hall. That would be a real change everyone could welcome.

Labour can also revive the jibe about the Tories being the party of posh boys, with former Winchester head boy Mr Sunak in No 10 and the former Etonian Mr Cameron at the Foreign Office. Indeed, the cabinet’s top four posts are now held by privately-educated men.

Yet it is not impossible to see Mr Sunak’s thinking.

If, as one assumes, he realises his hopes of winning the next election are close to zero, it makes sense for him to attempt to at least limit the electoral damage and leave office in dignity.

With Mr Cameron’s vast political experience and natural sense of loyalty, and safe pairs of hands at the other two great offices of state – James Cleverly at the Home Office and Jeremy Hunt at the Treasury – Mr Sunak’s job as prime minister will be much easier, even if it ends in failure at the ballot box. It is to be hoped that Mr Cleverly and Victoria Atkins, a welcome appointment as health secretary, will rebuild bridges with police and NHS workers that were burnt by their respective predecessors.

After false starts at the Tory conference and in last week’s thin King’s Speech, the dramatic reshuffle was the moment when we finally saw the “reset” promised by Mr Sunak’s aides. However, the missing piece is still what “Sunakism” is and where he would take the country if he won a full five-year term. To give the Tories any chance at the election, Mr Sunak and his new team will need to offer more than managerialism over the next 12 months.