Multi-Tasking Miller

So, the moneyed elites have returned from holidays to Tuscany and the squeezed middle are scraping the mud off their supermarket camping equipment. And just days into the new school term it is very much business as usual. There was no easing back in to the infuriating statements and pathetic posturing of Government. No hors d’oeuvres to the great stinking dirty political wash-bin that we will witness in the lead up to Christmas. The 24-hour news channels bristled with tanned cabinet ministers spouting off in the gardens around Westminster, bathed in bright autumn sunlight. It was all free schools and Gove and that hotly-anticipated reshuffle.

Yes, the re-shuffle. Who would have thought it – a woman with an annoying voice and moles on her face replaced after ten months by chubby-chops Patrick McLoughlin. Swiftly dispatched to the far flung corners of international development (where, you may remember Blair stuffed that trouble-maker Clare Short) where she will not upset whatever plans young Cammers has for Heathrow.

And then there was the bombshell. This blog’s favourite private-school gimp: Jeremy Hunt, shipped into health, I expect as a salesman for the “nasty” NHS reforms. The populace has generally bought the “all in this together” line on the economy. But the Government now needs a bell-bonging, Murdoch-snogging Charterhouse chap to put a happy face on the privatisation of our beloved NHS.

Maria Miller – who will replace Hunto – is expected to multi-task. As well as culture she will be minister for “women and equalities.” God forbid that women should have a dedicated minister of their own.

A lot has been said about the casting out of some high-profile women, such as Caroline Spelman and Baroness Warsi. The cabinet is now even less representative of the population than ever before. But I have the hunch that Cameron knows this won’t piss off the voters as much as it does The Guardian newspaper.