Political Focus, with Bill Jacobs

IF Tony Blair faces a few problems in deciding when and how to reshuffle his government, Tory leader William Hague must be green with envy.

If one or two of the Labour Cabinet may be looked on as sub-standard or have run into problems of their own or others' making, at least most range from the competent to the inspired.

And below them there is a rank of Ministers of State with several eminently promotable men and women.

But in Mr Hague's case, his top team is full of people the voters have already cast into the darkness once and below them he has few places to look.

The top figures - Michael Howard, Brian Mawhinney and Peter Lilley - have failed to make any impression.

Mr Howard's inability to exploit Foreign Secretary Robin Cook's many problems may consign him to the Parliamentary dustbin.

It is an echo of his failure to to capitalise on Blackburn MP Jack Straw's discomfort in Opposition when Mr Howard was Home Secretary.

But if Mr Howard has to go, who will replace him? His deputies Gary Streeter and David Faber have shown no signs of setting Westminster alight. Similarly, Shadow Home Secretary Brian Mawhinney has performed poorly. Admittedly, he has not been helped by the fact that Mr Straw has taken to government like a duck to water and been one of the Cabinet's real stars, becoming along the way one of the Prime Minister's closest confidants.

Every time Dr Mawhinney's Ulster accent is heard on the airwaves -rare though that is - voters are reminded of precisely why they rejected the Tory campaign he masterminded as party chairman 13 months ago.

But, once again, the names of his Juniors - James Clappison and John Greenway - do not trip off the tongue as possible replacements.

Shadow Chancellor Peter Lilley, one of the intellectually brighter members of the Tory top team, has failed to exploit the rift between Gordon Brown and Mr Blair but the extreme right-wing views and low political profile of his support team - David Heathcoat-Amory and Michael Fallon - offer no ready replacements.

The most active of the Tory front-bench has been Trade and Industry spokesman John Redwood, but he has mainly boosted his reputation as a swivel-eyed Thatcherite ideologue and encouraged suspicions that his industry is more to do with eyeing the leader's job than his own brief. The other man originally schemed in for the top finance job was former Treasury Minister Francis Maude, but at Culture, Media and Sport this supposedly rising star has faded rather than shone. At Northern Ireland Andrew Mackay - who took an African holiday as the Ulster peace process came to its crisis - has failed miserably.

Sir Norman Fowler has been a punchbag for Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott. At Health, John Maples has either been silent or, as with this week hospital closures fiasco, embarrassing.

Sir George Young at Defence has been unable to exploit Labour's traditional weakness on the issue.

Education and Employment's Stephen Dorrell is, sensibly, stepping down after a poor year.

Of the competent few, agriculture spokesman Michael Jack - who has landed blows on his opposite number Jack Cunningham and rebuilt Tory support among farmers - is not keen to move and his pro-European views clash with Mr Hague's own.

At Social Security, Iain Duncan Smith has the opposite problem of being so far to the right that high-public exposure might turn voters off. Leader of the Commons Gillian Shephard has displayed a guile and command of Westminster practice that make her hard to move.

He and his team of Ribble Valley MP Nigel Evans and former Foreign Office Minister Liam Fox have been the most effective force on the Opposition benches - helped by government blunders on devolution. The new MPs, while intelligent individuals, have seemingly lost any sense of judgement since entering the Commons.

As he looks at his clapped out front-bench and the dearth of talent on the substitutes bench or in the youth team, Mr Hague must despair of finding a potent strike force in World Cup year.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.