I suspect this is what David Cameron will end up feeling when the final chapter is written on Jeremy Hunt's tenure at health. Hunt has some remarkable opinions to his name, that make him uniquely unqualified to be health secretary, including his views on abortion, his support for homoeopathy, his opposition to the NHS tribute at the Olympics opening ceremony and his views on the NHS, which he says he wants to dismantle, and close the barriers between the public and private sector, with the state subsidising the poor in their attempt to buy health insurance. This would be an adoption of the lamentable and awful American system, which literally kills thousands of people a year.
He leaves behind a wasteland at DCMS, where he was hugely unpopular. He is replaced there by Maria Miller, who bizarrely gets the equalities portfolio, despite her views on abortion, opposition to Gay marriage, etc. From my point of view, Cameron has appointed exactly the wrong people in key positions, from a Tory one he will be credited for putting in place ministers who will help halt the flow of progress. People like Chris Grayling, the "justice" minister who believes b&bs should be able to discriminate against Gay people. He and Miller will no doubt lead to a large increase in membership for LGBT Labour.
There are also a couple of sad dismissals. Tim Loughton, though I disagree with him on some issues, was a caring minister for children and knew his stuff. Obviously he had to go. Same with Nick Harvey at defence. The Fib Dems used to have a minister at every department, but have traded defence (which they didn't care about) for one at environment, because they have lots of rural MPs. It won't save them. Neither will a return to the backbenches for Sarah Teather, who has to go back to Brent and explain to all those voters who never dreamt that when voting for her that they were voting for a Tory government, much less that she would be part of it.
The removal of Justine Greening is beautiful. The Government have changed their policy on Heathrow. About as subtly as a kick in the face. Also interesting is the promotion of Michael Green, from housing minister to Tory co-chair. Sayeeda Warsi was just embarrassing, I used to leave the room when she was on she was so cringe inducing. Who will forget her saying this year on the may election night coverage that Labour were only going to make 500 councillor gains, which was mediocre, a good result would be gaining 800. Then we gained 850.
So now the Cabinet is entirely white, more male, more southern and with more Oxbridge graduates. As if it wasn't before! Cameron has signalled the death of his mission to reform his party, and he has no vision anymore. He is rolling back everything that was decent about him, promoting anti-green ministers, anti gay rights ones and anti NHS ones. He is either so weak that he is having to cosy up to the right, or he is just showing his true spots.
