Not much room for Cabinet manoeuvres

Expect reshuffles by both David Cameron and Ed Miliband in the coming weeks.

But Cameron’s plans have somewhat been thrown into disarray by last week’s Syria shambles, with anything from five to nine ministers who failed to vote now facing the axe.

And he retains the problem he had last autumn there’s not much room for manoeuvre.

Last year he tried to move both Ken Clarke and Baroness Warsi on, but ended up creating new jobs for them instead. Or at least new job titles it’s not clear what either of them actually do these days.

Ministers with coats on a shoogly peg include Culture Secretary Maria Miller, who appears to have flunked on broadband; junior health minister Anna Soubry, who is too keen on independent thought; and Theresa Villiers, a dead loss at the Northern Ireland office.

David Cameron wants more women in government, yet those he promoted last year have largely turned out to be duffers.

This year Scot Mary MacLeod is a shoo-in for promotion, NHS campaigner Charlotte Leslie could get Soubry’s job and Loughborough MP Nicky Morgan could replace Sir George Young as the head of the whips office.

What Cameron needs is a female minister of the calibre of Jo Swinson. The Lib Dem has been outstanding in her cross-departmental role covering both women’s and consumer issues.

She’s done more than enough to earn a promotion, most likely to the Department for Energy where Ed Davey has lacked spark. But she’s pregnant and due to take maternity leave in December.

It would be massively ironic if she’s overlooked for promotion on those grounds when her current brief covers sex discrimination.

Ed Miliband has the opposite problem to Cameron. His team has plenty of weak links and he’ll likely call up bright young things like Luciana Berger, Stella Creasy and Emma Reynolds.

Two positions are vital to Labour’s tilt at power in 2015.

Questions remain about whether shadow chancellor Ed Balls is too closely associated with Gordon Brown’s discredited time in Downing Street.

Miliband must choose whether to accept that version of events and fire Balls or keep his shadow chancellor and be prepared to stand up for Labour’s record of engineering years of growth and successfully saving the economy from utter extermination after the banks had blown a hole in it.

There is a third option open to Miliband.

Reshuffle again in 12 months’ time and give Alistair Darling who he’ll hope is fresh from seeing off Alex Salmond and saving the union in his Better Together role the Treasury brief. The other position Miliband must settle is who replaces Tom Watson as election co-ordinator. Douglas Alexander is front-runner despite being in charge in 2010 when Labour recorded their second-worst result ever. However, there’s no doubting Alexander’s political and intellectual acumen.

A more forward-looking appointment would be Rachel Reeves. In her first two years in parliament mainly opposite the insubstantial Danny Alexander in the shadow Treasury team she’s proved she’s a force to contend with.

She’s tipped to be a future Labour leader or perhaps given her background at the Bank of England an intellectual Chancellor in the mould of Gordon Brown, teamed with a more presentationally adept leader like Chuka Umunna?

Like the shadow chancellor job there is a third option open to Miliband and, again, it involves going back to the future.

Lord Mandelson’s had more comebacks than Frank Sinatra. Just like Ol’ Blue Eyes Mandelson, the so-called “dark lord”, has been the best in the business and even past his prime he still has that certain something that sets him apart from the rest.

Labour would have High Hopes Mandelson will take them All the Way, but choosing him might prove Something Stupid.