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What exactly is a “Senior Minister of State”? Does anyone know?

October 29, 2012 5:09 pm

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Earlier today we noted that weeks after it was announced, the Government Growth Committee doesn’t seem to have met yet – or if it has, no-one seems to know who is on it, including Cabinet ministers.

Yet it seems that isn’t the only loose end that the government have failed to tie up since the reshuffle. Andrew Pierce notes in the Daily Mail this morning:

“When Baroness Warsi was sacked as Tory chairman by David Cameron and switched to the Foreign Office, she insisted on the title Senior Minister of State. But what does it mean? It seems William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, hasn’t got a clue. Almost two months after the reshuffle, Hague, in a written answer to the Labour MP Kevan Jones last week, said the ‘responsibilities will be published in due course’.”

That question was two weeks ago. We’re now nearly two months since the reshuffle, and Warsi’s “responsibilities” still don’t seem to have been clarified- unless you include this list from the Foreign office website, which is vague, and doesn’t seem any different to a conventional minister of state. So what is so “senior” about it?

What exactly is a “Senior Minister of State”? Does anyone know? Or is it just what they call you when you get demoted…?

http://twitter.com/tristanpw1 TristanPriceWilliams

It’s what little silly people get when they are demoted and don’t want it to look like they have been demoted.

Cameron wanted to hang on to her, even though she has never been elected to parliament, because she ticks loads of boxes which the Tories find hard to do, being from a minority ethnic group and a Muslim to boot, being a woman and being a northerner… with an accent.

She’s Tory gold.

She probably could have asked for the style “highness” and got away with it.
Serbitar

“Senior” in normally a euphemism for “old” isn’t it? Just saying.
NT86

Baroness Warsi still needs to feel some sense of meaning in her ministerial role after getting demoted from Chairman. For a party which never did tokenism, she is the epitome of it. I guess being “senior” makes it sound more special than it really is.

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