Thursday 25 September 2008

Political Top Trumps

This morning my colleagues returned to the office tanked up with stories of their adventures at the Labour Party Conference in Manchester. Sifting through their goodie bags full of promotional leaflets and useful contact details they showed me their most prized freebie; a set of Political Top Trumps. A special edition of the traditional card game Top Trumps, where each card represented some of the UK’s most influential politicians from the Gordon Brown, to David Miliband and Mayor of London Boris Johnson and contained data on marginality, expenses and value of memoirs.

The cards provoked some excitement amongst our team and we can’t wait until we get some free time to play them. However, I started to think in only a week’s time the information on these cards would become out of date as Gordon Brown is set to announce the reshuffle of his cabinet.

In his attempt to regain political momentum it is obvious that Gordon will have to make some significant changes. So who will become Gordon’s new top trumps?

Will Jacqui Smith remain as Home Secretary? Who will replace Ruth Kelly as she has now stepped down from her position as Transport Secretary?

It is speculated that rising stars Caroline Flint, Liam Byrne and Jim Murphy will move up the ranks while Des Browne and Geof Hoon may have their cards marked.

But the most pertinent move will be that of Foreign Secretary David Miliband. Will Brown keep his enemies close and promote Miliband or demote him even though he claims he is not a threat?

When the reshuffle is announced I believe the media will be most occupied with Miliband’s fate, however is hard to predict his new position in the cabinet as many like myself are not quite sure about the status of the relationship between Miliband and Brown.

We’ll have to keep our eyes peeled…

By Danielle Thomas

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