Who will be in Liz Truss’ Cabinet? All the predictions from Suella Braverman to IDS

Liz Truss has a yawning poll lead over Rishi Sunak in the race to be your next Prime Minister.

Anything can happen, but with most Tories having voted, Westminster’s thoughts are turning to her entering No10 on September 6.

The Foreign Secretary was holed up in her grace-and-favour residence Chevening at the weekend to thrash out potential jobs.

The tax-slashing free marketeer, who has slammed “handouts” for struggling Brits, is expected to appoint a string of right-wingers and allies to top jobs.

Suella Braverman, the ‘anti-woke’ warrior who vowed to leave the European Convention on Human Rights, is tipped for Home Secretary.

Old Etonian MP for North East Somerset Jacob Rees-Mogg could be put in charge of ‘Levelling Up’ the north.

Meanwhile there are reports of a return for Iain Duncan Smith, the Marmite former leader, and right-winger John Redwood who’s not cut the mustard for a frontbench job in 27 years.

By contrast, Deputy PM Dominic Raab is almost certainly for the chop after he branded Ms Truss’ plans an “electoral suicide note”.

And Michael Gove has already ruled himself out of a frontbench job, saying her plans are a “holiday from reality”.

We look at some of the most prominent names being tipped for Liz Truss ’s top team.

Kwasi Kwarteng

The staunch ally who lives a stone’s throw from Liz Truss in Greenwich, south London, is widely tipped to be her Chancellor.

The Business Secretary has already been setting out his stall, vowing “help is coming” with bills this winter.

The 47-year-old MP for Spelthorne since 2010 studied at Eton College and Cambridge, where he was on his college’s winning University Challenge team in 1995.

He worked as a financial analyst for JPMorgan, before co-writing a 2012 pamphlet with Liz Truss that said Brits were “among the worst idlers in the world”.

It argued the UK’s culture “rewards laziness” and “too many people in Britain prefer a lie-in to hard work”.

As Chancellor he’d be leading an emergency Budget, which the Sunday Times reported is pencilled in for September 21.

A Spectator profile suggested he will “facilitate, not emasculate” his PM – be less self-promoting than Rishi Sunak. But he is said to disagree with Ms Truss on some issues like approving the Sizewell C nuclear reactor.

Suella Braverman

The Attorney General – being lined up for Home Secretary – is among the few Tories who can match Priti Patel for hardline views.

The 42-year-old wants the UK to leave the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects against torture and unfair trials.

She has attacked the “rights culture” that began under Tony Blair, and said schools do not have to use trans children’s preferred pronouns.

As a leadership candidate Ms Braverman said “we need to shrink the size of the state” and “get rid of all of this woke rubbish”.

Despite 41% of Universal Credit claimants having a job, she said: “There are too many people in this country who are of working age, who are of good health and who are choosing to rely on benefits, on taxpayers’ money – on your money, my money – to get by.”

Born in Harrow to parents from Kenya and Mauritius, the QC went to a private school with scholarship help and Cambridge University.

Kemi Badenoch

Reports have tipped the former equalities minister – who came fourth in the leadership contest – for Education Secretary or Culture Secretary.

Whatever the job, she has been guaranteed a senior position after vowing “limited government” and a war on “woke”.

The 42-year-old MP for Saffron Walden since 2017 was born to a GP and professor in Wimbledon, though is keen to point out she had a job in McDonald’s while studying for her A-levels.

Later she worked for the private bank Coutts and the Spectator, standing as a Tory candidate for the first time in 2010.

She was eventually elected in 2017 and rose fast – introducing Theresa May at conference in her first year.

Ms Badenoch attacked “dead weight” funds to help people with soaring energy bills – in agreement with Liz Truss.

But they could clash after she said rivals should “stop pretending” they can cut taxes and the state can still do everything it currently does.

“For too long politicians have been saying… you can have your cake and eat it. I’m here to tell you that’s not the case,” she said.

James Cleverly

The Boris Johnson uber-loyalist and Education Secretary ruled himself out of this leadership race as his wife was undergoing cancer treatment.

But he has risen through the party since he was elected MP for Braintree in 2015.

Aged 52, he has been tipped in reports for Foreign Secretary after being a Foreign Office minister.

Born in London’s Lewisham Hospital and privately schooled, his Army career was cut short by a leg injury and he studied at what was then West London Polytechnic.

He worked in publishing, sales and advertising before co-founding a web publishing firm. He still serves in the Territorial Army.

He is a Tory loyalist who pumps out key messages on Twitter, often infuriating the left – though with a little more humour than some of his colleagues.

Therese Coffey

Ms Truss’s karaoke-loving campaign manager – who was once pictured wielding a cigar, and sang ‘Time of My Life’ the night Universal Credit was cut – is tipped for Chief Whip.

The Work and Pensions Secretary has been a firm ally from the start, joining Ms Truss on the Commons terrace to celebrate the night she made the final two.

If she was Chief Whip her no-nonsense manner – she has a PhD in chemistry – may be better suited than clashing with Labour over heart breaking stories from benefit claimants.

The 50-year-old MP for Suffolk Coastal since 2010 was brought up in Liverpool and attended state school, but saw Margaret Thatcher as her political hero.

She describes herself as a practicing Catholic and strongly opposed same-sex marriage when it was legalised by David Cameron. But she is also liked by fellow Tories and fond of a Westminster knees-up.

Iain Duncan Smith

The 68-year-old former leader, an MP since 1992, has not been in the Cabinet since he resigned in protest at benefit cuts in 2016.

But he has been part of Liz Truss’s team and reports claim he is being lined up for a Cabinet job. It’s understood he has not ruled out a return to government.

Veteran Brexiteer ‘IDS’ is a divisive figure, known for many heroics or sins (depending on your view) since his days as one of John Major ’s “b*****ds” over the Maastricht Treaty.

He saw through years of benefit cuts, including the Bedroom Tax, before he turned in public. Recently he has said even a watered-down ban on gay conversion therapy needs revising.

His reputation is likely to precede him for many, even if he has more recently been quietly campaigning for benefit rates to rise.

Jacob Rees-Mogg

The Old Etonian MP for North East Somerset has been touted in the media as… Levelling-Up Secretary.

Or as Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham put it: “Heaven knows I’m miserable now”.

From the 12-year-old son of a newspaper editor who declared his love for money, to the 53-year-old investment firm owner, the MP’s gaffes and clashes with the left are too numerous to count.

He has waged war on civil servants working from home while Boris Johnson works from Chequers, and he himself lives in a £5m townhouse a few minutes’ walk from Parliament.

He said the rise of food banks was “rather uplifting” because it showed how compassionate volunteers were.

And he sparked a backlash when he was pictured lounging on the green benches in Parliament.

John Redwood

Another of John Major’s Maastricht “b*****ds” was John Redwood, who now hasn’t served on the front bench in nearly three decades.

Now 71, the old-fashioned Thatcherite right-winger could be tempted out of retirement for a job in the Treasury, according to reports.

He’d certainly hold the purse strings tight. He has tweeted: “Of course Liz will offer more help for people and businesses with the cost of energy.

Universal hand outs are not the way.

“Tax cuts, help for people on low incomes and urgent measures to produce more domestic energy are needed.”

Penny Mordaunt

The Truss-backing Trade Minister is less-often tipped – but logically could be offered a job, given she nearly became Prime Minister.

She was the dark horse favourite before losing her Tory ballot spot to Liz Truss by just eight votes in the MPs’ knockout stage.

Once a moderate, her campaign leaned hard into “culture war” issues, leading to claims Tories didn’t know what she stood for.

She said “trans women are women” in 2018 but added in the campaign: “I think it was Margaret Thatcher who said that every Prime Minister needs a willy. A woman like me doesn’t have one.”

Born to an ex-paratrooper, named after a Navy ship and related to both Angela Lansbury and Labour’s first chancellor Philip Snowden, Ms Mordaunt was educated at a Catholic school, a drama school and Reading University.

Since becoming an MP in 2010 she had a string of jobs including Defence Secretary but was sacked from Cabinet by Boris Johnson.

The Royal Navy reservist, 49, also took part in reality TV’s Splash and said “cock” six times in a Commons debate as a dare.

Simon Clarke

The Liz Truss loyalist has so far flown under the radar, which is surprising given he’s 6ft7in – towering over ex-colleague Rishi Sunak.

As Chief Secretary to the Treasury the 37-year-old, an MP since 2017, has been helping draw up cost-of-living support Ms Truss may adopt.

The privately-educated son of a solicitor led the Oxford University Conservative Association and worked as a lawyer and Tory aide.

One of the youngest senior frontbenchers, Mr Clarke has revealed he suffers from agoraphobia – discomfort in open spaces.

Rishi Sunak

As Liz Truss’s rival for the top job, he’d normally be expected to be offered a Cabinet role. But Rishi Sunak has clashed bitterly with the frontrunner, branding her plans “dangerous”.

And he has hinted he will turn down a job, saying: “You really need to agree with the big things because it’s tough as I found if you don’t. I wouldn’t want to end up in a situation like that again.”

The slick 42-year-old Chancellor, nicknamed ‘Dishy Rishi’, was long seen as the frontrunner to be Britain’s first PM of Asian descent.

But the former investment firm founder, who has only been an MP since 2015, slipped down the rankings after a series of gaffes as the cost of living crisis bit.

It emerged his wife Askhata Murty, with whom he’s 222nd on the Sunday Times Rich List with a combined £730m fortune, was paying £30,000 a year to use her non-dom status not to pay UK tax on her overseas income. She later U-turned.

Nadhim Zahawi

The current Chancellor has backed Liz Truss and, while facing demotion, could be a pick for a top job somewhere.

The former Boris Johnson loyalist, 55, is a multimillionaire right-wing Tory who came to Britain as a nine-year-old from Iraq.

The MP for Stratford-on-Avon since 2010’s Kurdish parents fled Baghdad in the 1970s during the rise of Saddam Hussein.

He was educated at a West London comprehensive, then a private school before attending UCL and building up a lucrative business career. He co-founded the leading pollster YouGov before being elected to Parliament in 2010.

On the back benches he comfortably made a mint in the oil industry, being paid £350,000 a year by Gulf Keystone Petroleum between 2015 and 2017, where he served as the firm’s Chief Strategy Officer.

He was finally forced to leave the lucrative work behind when he became a junior education minister in 2018. He and his wife have an extensive property empire through private firms.

Sajid Javid

The failed leadership hopeful has been tipped for the role of Northern Ireland Secretary but it’s reportedly not “nailed on”.

Aged 52, he was born in Rochdale, Lancashire, after his bus driver dad Abdul arrived in 1961 with just £1 in his pocket.

He once hit a classmate who called him a “p**i”, and was told in his first interview for a City job that his face “wasn’t going to fit in there”.

But he rose through Britain’s booming financial services industry to be managing director at Deutsche Bank in 2004, and later had a portrait of Margaret Thatcher on the wall of his ministerial office.

Elected MP for Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, in 2010, he was the first member of Britain’s South Asian minority to be given a full-time post in the cabinet when he was appointed culture minister in 2014.

Ben Houchen

According to reports, the Tees Valley mayor could be put in the Lords so he can join Cabinet and “ram home the levelling up agenda.”

This would be similar to whisky publicist and born-again Brexiteer Lord Frost being put in the Lords and Cabinet by Boris Johnson to run Britain’s EU exit.

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