'Give him a painting of a spitfire and let him go.'

Continuing our look at the upcoming, long delayed, and desperately needed cabinet reshuffle.

Jeremy Hunt has been on borrowed time ever since he took a less than biased view about whether Rupert Murdoch should be granted his wish to buy out BSkyB.

Although no smoking gun was found Mr Hunt only hung on to his ministerial car because the PM was in charge of deciding who had acted within the rules.  At best Hunt was unwise. Cable was quite rightly removed from the bid for showing bias against NewsCorp. Hunt showed a lot more bias in favour.

Cameron had just lost Huhne and didn't want another tricky one for you, one for me coalition ministerial job swap to deal with. So Hunt remained.

 Jeremy Hunt was the minister for the Olympics. The Olympics will soon be completely over. 

The UK's bid to host the Euro soccer tournament ended in farce, embarrassment and a failed attempt to bring down the corrupt FIFA heads. We won't be bidding again. 

We won't get the Olympics for another 50 years at least. We can't do winter games. The Ecclestone Grand Prix London, £100 million proposal, is several zeros short of being realistic. 

Tennis, Rugby, golf and the Premier league all take care of themselves. Culture can manage with a deputy, deputy minister and media isn't going to be doing anything at all until everyone has forgotten about phone-gate.

So there really is no reason that Mr Hunt should retain his post. He did manage a good Olympic show so, in the fitting words of Steve 'Alan Partridge' Coogan, 'Give him a painting of a spitfire and let him go.'

I had pegged Anna Soubry, a Cameron favourite and someone who ticks just enough boxes to take the non-post. But rumours are leaking that Cameron is preparing to axe the entire department. He could gently rid himself of 'nothing wrong' Hunt. Remove the poisonous Murdoch media issue from government to quango. Appear as if he's finally getting tough on his promise to reduce the Brown style government overspending. And, with the abolition of CM&S, claim that the money saved by axing an entire department would be used to pay off the over budget cost of the Olympics, gifted to him by Labour.

Its a sound political strategy.

Wonder if he'll actually do it?

Pick a cad..put your cad back in the pack. Shuffle the pack..

That long awaited reshuffle must surely be due by the end of the summer. Euro cup, Wimbledon, Olympics, reshuffle. That's the sporting calendar.

Constrained by coalition David Cameron decided that it would be easier to leave everyone in place unless they forced themselves out of a job. So his few changes have been by push or fall. David Laws. Liam Fox. Chris Huhne.

 CON 35%, LAB 42%, LDEM 9%

With the Tories languishing 7-9% points behind Labour and the Liberals dreaming of only languishing 7-9 points behind UKIP, Its time for change.

Reshuffles are slate wiping exercises.  And since the worst budget in living memory {assuming living memory only extends to the final budget of Gordon '10p' Brown in 2007} the formerly patchy at best coalition slate now needs a total hosing.

The government is in a mess. The cuts aren't cutting. The growth isn't growing. The reforms aren't reforming. Own goals. U-turns. Leaks. Domestic squabbles and rebels, plus unremitting 24/7 negative media coverage, will end the coalition before the pre-nup 2015 agreement. Unless Dave can get a grip. And that means the weak and the ineffective need a Thachterite '81 style pruning.

Not easy in a coalition. Not easy with pretty dismal economic news. Not easy with the planned cuts to department budgets and the real spending halt soon to begin. 

But Mr Cameron, you wanted the job, so .. do it or quit. 

We'll look at the cabinet later on. For now just the big issue.

The biggest problem is the almost insurmountable one. The Chancellor has lost the plot. The man who's job it is to reassure us all has lost the nation's confidence. 

Until the budget of 2012 the Ed Miliband/Ed Balls dream team was rated only slightly above a Greek finance minister for economic competence. But in June  the “most capable chancellor” ratings gave George Osborne 36% and Ed Balls 37%.
The Tories are hoping its just a blip. It might be. Ed Balls is about to suffer on the Libor rate scandal as it gets bigger and more worms are found in the skirting board. The woodwork that was treated with FSA Ronseal. Doesn't exactly do what we said on the spin. 

Despite Osborne's fumbling to pin the blame on the donkey, Balls will eventually have some questions to answer.  But hurting Balls doesn't necessarily help Osborne.
Some have suggested that Osborne ditch his duel-fool role as Purse Holder and Tory Chairman, and spends less time as a strategist and more as a penny-pincher.  But Osborne excelled at the strategy game before the election. The inheritance tax gamble not only ended Brown's bid for a five year term,  it finished Brown as a man of conviction and directly led to all the relaunches, bumbling, U-turns, dithers and coups that marred the entire premiership. Osborne should be Tory Party Chairman but leave the office of Chancellor.

Not an easy task to swap chancellors. Since 1986 there have only been seven chancellors of the exchequer. Since 1996 there have been more elections, than chancellors. And the coalition has staked its reputation for reelection on being 100% right on the economy.

"Say No! to the spend and spend policies of Balls. Say No! to the unaffordable benefits for everyone of the left."

To axe the chancellor who  embodies those policies would be such an admission of failure it would hand the next election to the reds.

Unless...

One of those former era chancellors is still around in politics today. And by happy coincidence it was the most successful one. When chancellor Ken Clarke put a new monetary policy into effect and reduced basic rate income tax from 25-23%. The budget deficit fell from £50.8 billion in 1993 to just £15.5 billion in 1997.

The holy trilogy of inflation, unemployment and interest rates all fell. So golden was the legacy handed to Brown/Blair in 1997 that ..  

Clarke's successor, the Labour Chancellor Gordon Brown, continued these policies, which eliminated the deficit in 1998 and allowed Brown to record four years of budget surplus' 1998 - £703 million, 1999 - £12 billion, 2000 - £16.7 billion, 2001 - £8.4 billion. .. Clarke's success was such that Brown felt he had to pledge to keep to Clarke's spending plans in January 1997, ahead of the election. Clarke's spending limits remained in place for the first two years of the Labour government that was elected in 1997.

Recommending a replacement chancellor who has a track record that labour followed not just in word, but in deed. Who has the most experience of anyone in the cabinet. Who has already tackled recessions and cuts and social disorder and Europe, yet managed to make the country stronger despite all those problems shouldn't be too hard to spin.

He may be 75, but he is in cabinet now. 

A euro loving chancellor might be a bit of problem for Mr Cameron and his anti-eu rebels, but would be welcomed in Brussels and Berlin, where UK has few to no friends. 

And Cameron can always flip-flop. A referendum on EU membership is going to crop up as an issue before the election. Labour have it in their dirty tricks box already. Waiting to deploy it to split the Tories from UKIP just months before the next election. As long as Cameron has Clarke reconciled to that referendum promise that is going to have be made politically, however insincerely, they can appear united on all other fronts.

Cameron could slip old Ken into the Treasury and accept the U-turns and 'Plan B' jibes from the Miliband benches but with a  full ammo chest of his own retorts. 

'The incompetent lecturing the competent. The students hectoring the master. The most accomplished chancellor in modern times has nothing to answer from the least accomplished. Mr Miliband..the photocopier of Gordon Brown's failed economic policies.."

"I refer the muttering Hon Member  for Morley and Outwood to the years 1997-2000 when Ken Clarke was still ensuring wise, capable and fruitful policies were enacted by Mr Balls'  former master, even though Ken was no longer the chancellor! "

Well..just a thought.