After the reshuffle, Keir Starmer owes Rishi Sunak a thank you

Sunak has done sufficient admin to prepare for a Labour government, writes John Rentoul

A separate energy department has been Labour policy since 2008 (Getty/EPA)

It was considerate of Rishi Sunak to save the incoming Labour government the trouble of reorganising government departments. Not only that, he has ended Ed Miliband’s embarrassment of being a member of the shadow cabinet with nobody to shadow. Now he has Grant Shapps.

A separate energy department has been Labour policy since 2008, when Gordon Brown created it for the younger Miliband. So it is further evidence of social democratic convergence that the government now agrees with the opposition.

However sensible the changes might be, though, they are a distraction from the main purposes of government. Four new departments is a lot of new stationery and brass plates. It was selfless of Sunak to get the bureaucratic tidying up out of the way for Keir Starmer’s government – even giving the changes 18 months to settle in.