Damian Green’s departure shows how hard it is to predict politics

There is talk of wider Cabinet changes in January. Such things are always touted as a chance for a government to regain the initiative. It won’t do any good. Reshuffles never do

What will 2018 bring for the Prime Minister (and Larry the cat, for that matter)? (Getty)

The phrase of the week was that it’s not the original offence that gets you, it’s the cover-up. This dates from Watergate, when it wasn’t the break-in by a Republican dirty tricks operation that did for Richard Nixon – he almost certainly didn’t know about it at the time – but his attempts to conceal the truth afterwards.

This is the wrong cliché to apply to the case of Damian Green, the First Secretary who was sacked on Wednesday, because it implies that he had done something wrong and was forced to resign because he had covered it up.

In fact, the Cabinet Secretary’s investigation made no finding about the original allegations, but concluded that he had twice made “inaccurate and misleading” statements about whether he knew about one of them.

As is often the way with such things, by the time the minister had resigned the story had moved some distance from where it started.

In this case it started with the journalist Kate Maltby, who claimed Green made unwanted sexual advances to her. This prompted retired police officers to revive their claim they had found pornography on his computer during a leak investigation nine years ago.

The Cabinet Secretary said “it is not possible to reach a definitive conclusion on the appropriateness of Mr Green’s behaviour with Kate Maltby”, and he “reaches no conclusion” on the pornography.

It was only Green’s statements “which suggested that he was not aware that indecent material was found on parliamentary computers in his office” that broke the Ministerial Code, because “the Metropolitan Police Service had previously informed him of the existence of this material”.

In the cases of Michael Fallon and Priti Patel, the other two cabinet ministers to have resigned in two months, the breaches of rules were more clear-cut. But impenetrable complexity is the norm.

Does anyone remember now why Maria Miller, the Culture Secretary, resigned in 2014? She was caught up in the MPs’ expenses scandal, repaying £5,800 of overclaimed mortgage payments, but resigned partly because her apology in the House of Commons was widely considered too perfunctory.

Peter Mandelson had to resign twice over marginal and otherwise survivable excitements. And not even I, a student of New Labour in government, can remember the reasons Stephen Byers resigned as Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions in 2002.

Green’s departure was so unpredictable that both outcomes – resign or stay – were indeed predicted. Robert Peston, ITV’s political editor, reported that three sources had said he would survive, prompting one former special adviser to tell me that they must have been Green, his dog and his cat.

But I am sure that Peston’s sources were right at the time, and that the Prime Minister decided against Green only at the last moment.

Now there is talk of not simply replacing Green, but of wider Cabinet changes in January. Such things are always touted as a chance to revive a government and regain the initiative. It won’t do any good. Reshuffles never do.

Each rejig, even the minimalist ones carried out by Theresa May so far, disturbs the balance between factions, and annoys the displaced as well as the people who thought they should have been promoted.

Fallon’s replacement by Gavin Williamson, the Chief Whip, prompted the most extraordinary anonymous wailing and complaining from disaffected Tory MPs who had watched too much House of Cards.

It was ever thus. Tony Blair weakened himself by mishandling his last reshuffle in 2006. He lost Charles Clarke, who had to go from the Home Office because of a failure to deport foreign prisoners, but Blair couldn’t persuade him, one of the few who could stand up to Gordon Brown, to take the Ministry of Defence instead. And Blair failed to promote David Miliband, another minister who could have challenged Brown, giving the Foreign Office to Margaret Beckett.

So I suspect that Boris Johnson might not be moved from the Foreign Office in the new year. Although his star is fading, she cannot afford to alienate the Leaver faction by sacking or humiliating him, and to which top job could he be moved where he would have less opportunity to get into scrapes?

Still, the lesson of Green’s departure is that things don’t turn out as expected. Thus, of the conventional wisdoms of 2018 – that Theresa May will continue as Prime Minister; that Jeremy Corbyn will carry on as Labour leader; that the bare bones of a Brexit deal will be agreed in time to be ratified – at least one could turn out differently.