Ministerial meetings in February and March pencilled rather than inked into diaries make this an unhappy Christmas for anxious cabinet members fearing redundancy in a coming reshuffle. Unemployment is forecast to hit 2.6 million but the job Alok Sharma worries about is his own. Gavin Williamson must be fretting too that Boris Johnson will realise that a Debenhams shop-soiled mannequin would prove a better education secretary. My snout whispers private offices are on alert for a bunch of nonentities to be replaced by a fresh spray of nonentities.
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