Government reshuffles mean nothing to the people

This traditional game of mid-term musical chairs is always big news for the national press.

They see it as the parties clearing the decks to get their teams in place in readiness for the run-up to the next General Election.

All other news, save the most serious, is shoved to one side as the changes and the who’s in, who’s out scenarios were debated down to the tiniest of minutiae by a panel of political experts telling us what the changes meant for us mere mortals.

But who, apart from the media and the odd assortment of political anoraks, is remotely interested in these changes?

Does anyone really care who holds which parliamentary portfolio?

Mr Pendle contends that, at the end of the day, it does not matter to 99.9% of the population who the minister for a certain department is. It makes absolutely no difference to them whether it is Fred Bloggs, Joe Soap or some other MP who holds the reins.

Whatever the experts might say, the vast majority of us will not notice any difference.

Life in the real world went on very much as it did under the previous Cabinet (or at least it did here in Pendle) – and it will carry on as before for most people whoever sits at the Cabinet table in Whitehall in the future.