Heappey promoted – but no to Pow
The Liz Truss reshuffle has now dealt with all the cabinet positions. While there is as yet no news on junior ministers, there are not expected to be any seismic changes.
James Heappey, MP for Wells has been sort of promoted. The ex serviceman was made Minister of State for the Armed Forces and Veterans in 2020. It has been confirmed that he will retain that post. But now he is one of a handful of ministers invited to join cabinet meetings. His position was probably helped by his support for Liz Truss in the leadership election.
Less in the way of good news for Rebecca Pow. She was previously a junior minister at the Department of the Environment. The MP for Taunton famously resigned “on principle” with many others to force Boris Johnson out. But timed her resignation such that she ended up resigning after the prime minister.
Pow backed Rishi Sunak in the leadership election and is not expected to make a return to the government benches. Her formed boss, Environment Secretary George Eustice has also been replaced in the cabinet reshuffle.
The news that our MP James Heappey has retained his post as “Minister of State for the Armed Forces and Veterans” is unsurprising. Over the months he has been actively assisting the supply of weapons to Ukraine and probably doing this reasonably competently.
The equipment and training we supply are not just free give a ways. The tax payer paid for these weapons and the tax payer will be expected to pay for the replacements.
Why then is it so unreasonable for those energy companies that are unexpectedly profiting by the Ukrainian war, to fund the huge extra expense for the equipment and training by a windfall tax or similar.
Let me make clear that I full support supporting Ukraine to our full capacity, but it is an injustice if those that are having unexpected gains should not contribute towards the costs of the cause of those gains.
We are in this together.
Greg King