Boris Johnson keeping tight-lipped on cabinet reshuffle rumours

Boris Johnson isn’t usually tight-lipped. Quite the opposite, in fact.

But on the subject of whether a cabinet reshuffle is imminent, he was giving nothing away as he arrived to address Tory MPs at Westminster.

After he greeted me and politely enquired after my health as he approached Committee Room 14, I asked him: “Is there a reshuffle tomorrow, prime minister?”

He let out a loud sigh, turned sharp left and leapt up the step in front of the door marked “Chairman’s Entrance” and in he went, to be greeted by loud and long cheers and the traditional banging of desks.

Almost an hour later, as he left the meeting of the 1922 Committee just before the 7pm votes on his NHS bail-out and national insurance increase, I asked him once again.

“You didn’t answer my question about the reshuffle!” I told him. This time he said loudly: “Aah!” before dissolving into raucous laughter as he headed off down the corridor.

The ’22 had been a jolly occasion, partly because Conservative MPs were so delighted to be attending a proper meeting in person after more than a year of COVID restrictions.

For the dozens of journalists in the corridor – another pre-COVID ritual when party leaders are addressing their backbenchers – the prime minister’s booming voice could be heard rallying his troops.

There were obviously plenty of Johnson jokes, too, as laughter was audible as well as the applause and banging of desks – the latter a ritual which a cynic would say is purely for the benefit of the journalists in the corridor.

There was plenty of hyperbole too as the PM told his MPs the Conservatives remained “the party of free enterprise, the private sector and low taxation”. And he added: “We should never forget that.”

Low taxation? Plenty of Tory MPs don’t believe that any more.

But in a typical Johnson “have cake and eat it” claim, he also said he could not think of a better use for public money than spending on the NHS.

MPs leaving the meeting said the prime minister’s speech was “very upbeat” and “very positive”. No, really? When aren’t the PM’s speeches upbeat and positive?

And his mood will have improved half an hour later when the Tory rebellion on the national insurance hike was restricted to just five MPs – plus abstentions – and the government comfortably won the key vote with a majority of 71.

Does that mean there’s no reshuffle now and the No.10-inspired rumours and threats of sackings and demotions for duds and promotion for loyalists were just a ploy to quell a cabinet mutiny and backbench rebellion?

The prime minister isn’t saying. Well, not to me, anyway!

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