With Cleverly centre stage, the Tories have a new look – but that isn’t the same as a plan | Martin Kettle

It hardly compares for importance with all the cruelties in Gaza or Sudan. But then little else does that at present. It caused barely a ripple on the parochial surface of British politics either. That’s hardly surprising at a time when Downing Street is warning about summer riots. Tellingly, the Daily Telegraph itself could only muster a single front-page paragraph on it on Wednesday, underneath Ozzy Osbourne’s death and the England women’s football extra-time squeaker.

Yet Kemi Badenoch’s shadow cabinet reshuffle this week should not be totally dismissed. See it instead as an inadequate recognition of an indisputable problem for any contemporary centre-right party, as well as an incoherent attempt to address it. If the Conservative party is very lucky, the reshuffle could be…