The idea that the Cabinet is chockfull of brain-dead non-entities is a charge levelled with increasing frequency of late. But it is nothing new— anyone of a certain age can remember a 1980s Spitting Image sketch. Margaret Thatcher is dining out with her colleagues and orders steak, wherein the waitress asks “What about the vegetables?” and she replies, “Oh, they’ll have the same as me.”
Yet, in retrospect, some of those then around the table can hardly be written off as bootlicking political lightweights: Geoffrey Howe and Nigel Lawson were responsible for huge changes to the structure and running of the British economy; Leon Brittan helped see his boss safely through the miners’ strike, as well as steering 1984’s landmark Police and Criminal Evidence Bill onto the statute book; Norman Fowler spearheaded the bill to make seatbelts compulsory, and persuaded Thatcher to take educating the public about Aids seriously—policies that saved many thousands of lives.