IN A shift to the Right that will please Euro-sceptics, Conservative leader William Hague shakes up the Shadow Cabinet.
It can hardly do worse that its predecessor in trying to raise the Tories' profile as the party of Opposition.
For though Labour's massive Commons majority may add to the sense of the Tories' irrelevance, so, too, has the failure of their front-bench team to land a telling blow on the government.
The new team, then, will have to show more aggression - and perhaps that might come from the appointment of Ann Widdecombe to shadow health.
As her spectacular demolition of her old boss Michael Howard's ambitions showed, she can be a formidable opponent.
Of the rest, it will be up to Mr Hague and the so far untested "new faces" to put some steel into the still-disarrayed Tories, but time is running out for them to live up to the role of opposition with a capital 'O".
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