UK Edition
This week's reshuffle was defined by Brexit. If Theresa May kicked a Remainer like Philip Hammond out of her cabinet, she would have had to ease out an equally prominent Brexiteer – and replace them both with similarly-minded ministers – to avoid triggering accusations that she was helping a particular side.
Rather than risk upsetting the Brexit balance, the Prime Minister settled for the easier option of keeping all those in cabinet working on it closely in place. But lower down the ministerial ladder, the balancing act has been less precise.
The changes among junior ministers will have suited Philip Hammond, as he now leads a Treasury team who all preferred that Britain stayed in the European Union (Liz Truss is a somewhat honourable exception: she now professes to support Brexit, given how inaccurate the gloomy predictions have proven to be).
The Chancellor used to have one junior minister who wanted Brexit from the off, Stephen Barclay, but he has been sent off to the Department of Health, which has much less to do with the process.
Replacing the Treasury's sole steadfast Brexiteer minister with a Remainer may seem innocuous, but it suggests that Mr Hammond's new team will be much less likely to challenge the Whitehall orthodoxy on Brexit.
Ministers provide the political thrust in Whitehall, so their input can be valuable. When Andrea Leadsom served at the Treasury, I've heard a lot about how she did not save officials – even though she was a junior minister operating under George Osborne – from her pro-Leave views. They may have found her pro-Brexit advocacy irksome, but you might judge given the process they're having to tackle now that she was ahead of the curve.
Remainers continue to dominate in other departments that have to get to grips with Brexit. Amber Rudd still leads an all-Remain team at the Home Office, bolstered by their new recruit Caroline Nokes. The Cabinet Office is staffed by an entirely new ministerial team, none of whom backed Brexit in the referendum. That means Olly Robbins, Mrs May's adviser who leads his own Brexit unit in the department, won't expect any attempted backseat driving.
The instincts ministers have on the merits of Britain's departure matter to Brexiteers. One pro-Leave minister recently told me that their fellow Eurosceptics fear that a surfeit of pro-EU ministers raised the risk that the "proper arguments are not going to be made" for a Brexit that "honours the referendum result". By failing to challenge pro-EU doctrine in the civil service, Eurosceptics worry that they would permit an insufficiently clean break.
As the Remainers tighten their grip on the levels of ministerial power in Whitehall, however, David Davis has bolstered the Brexiteer credo in his department – appropriately so given that it is the Department for Exiting the European Union.
Two of his ministers, Lord Callanan and Steve Baker, are robust Brexiteers. He has a Remainer, Robin Walker, who argued during the referendum that Brexit was a "hit we can ill afford". But his Brexit scepticism will be curbed by the addition of a new minister, Suella Fernandes. She is fervently pro-Leave, succeeding Mr Baker as tribune of the Brexiteer backbenchers as head of the European Research Group. The prospect of Britain failing to secure an exit deal doesn't unnerve her, as she remarked last July that it would be "great as well for us".
Remainers are in ascendant across much of Whitehall, with Mr Davis' department one of the few places where Brexiteer ministers proliferate. Might that entrench existing attitudes around the cabinet table? Quite possibly, as Mr Hammond and the Brexit Secretary will appreciate the intellectual ballast their juniors provide. But it doesn't necessarily set them more at odds, given that they are both today leading a charm offensive together in Germany.
The latest ministerial movements show that Mr Davis leads one of the few bastions of Brexit in Whitehall, with its zeal undimmed by any new Remain recruits.
As Remainers tighten their grip in Whitehall, David Davis builds his bastion of Brexit