Kemi Badenoch Gives All 26 New Tory MPs Jobs In Opposition
2 min read
Every new Conservative MP elected at the 4 July General Election has been given a role in Kemi Badenoch’s opposition.
Badenoch, who was elected Leader of the Opposition earlier this month, has made 17 new Tory MPs shadow parliamentary private secretaries, with the remaining nine appointed to the whips' office.
The nine MPs given junior whip roles include Nick Timothy, Katie Lam, Harriet Cross, Ben Obese-Jecty, Rebecca Paul, Rebecca Smith, Gregory Stafford, Ashley Fox and Andrew Snowden.
Timothy was chief of staff to former prime minister Theresa May while Lam served as a special adviser in the Home Office and as deputy chief of staff to Boris Johnson when he was in 10 Downing Street.
Obese-Jecty and Snowden were Badenoch’s two public endorsements from the new intake during the Tory leadership race.
Other notable appointments include the youngest Tory MP Shivani Raja as a PPS in the shadow women and equalities team, while veterans Lincoln Jopp and David Reed have been appointed to the shadow foreign office and defence briefs respectively.
Former NHS surgeon Dr Neil Shastri-Hurst is a PPS in the shadow health team, while Jack Rankin, who backed Badenoch's leadership rival Robert Jenrick, is a PPS in the shadow justice brief.
The Tories' heavy defeat to Labour in July reduced the party to just 121 seats in the House of Commons, leaving Badenoch with a significantly diminished pool of people to draw from while assembling her shadow team.
One senior Tory told PoliticsHome that the "very good" appointments represented a similar approach to when Labour went into opposition in 2010 and Ed Miliband appointed a host of new MPs to roles in the official opposition.
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