Johnson picks Sherwood MP as crucial first Cabinet appointment
Boris Johnson’s first appointment after winning the Conservative Party’s leadership election was to name Sherwood MP Mark Spencer as chief whip.
Spencer, who has been an MP since 2010, is a remainer and will have the crucial job of enforcing party discipline while working with the Government’s wafer-thin majority.
His appointment was quickly welcomed by those at Westminister:
Absolutely delighted to hear of the appointment of Mark Spencer as Chief Whip . A really excellent sane and wise choice #areallygoodman
— Nicholas Soames (@NSoames) July 23, 2019
Mark Spencer is the new chief whip. Interesting choice. A whips' whip. Welcomed by Hunt backers.
— Francis Elliott (@elliotttimes) July 23, 2019
Johnson, who beat Jeremy Hunt two-to-one in the vote of Conservative Party members, will become Prime Minister later today when he is expected to confirm his choices for the big Cabinet jobs.
He is expected to name Midlands MP Sajid Javid as his Chancellor, who would become the UK’s first Asian Chancellor.
East Midland Chamber has written to Johnson to urge him to resolve Brexit and to seize the “brief window of opportunity to initiate change”.
Scott Knowles, the Chamber’s Chief Executive, said: “It is essential that the Brexit issue is now resolved. Business wants to invest, it wants to plan for three, five and 10 years ahead, it wants to know that it will have access to skilled workers, it needs to know what future trading relations will be, both with the EU and the rest of the world, and it needs to know what costs it will face.
“Given a clear direction, business will go back to excelling at what it does best, which is to drive economic growth through the creation of jobs and wealth, something that it has found hard to do while mired in the doubt and uncertainty of Brexit.”
