The big Downing Street change around continues. There has been much speculation that policy head James O’Shaughnessy was on his way out. With the re-jigging of Ameet Gill to replace Tim Chatwin as Head of Strategy, plus the arrival of Julian Glover in the speech-writing team, Guido has been waiting for the expected announcement. To no avail…

Guido tried calling O’Shaughnessy’s extension to be greeted by a confused staffer who first claimed that James was on “annual leave”, when Guido asked if the policy wonk was ever coming back from his “holiday” they said they didn’t know what was going on. Other Downing Street sources are refusing to deny O’Shaughnessy has left the building. Guido understands that a civil servant, Chris Brown, is running the policy unit.

Shades of dysfunctionality in Downing Street…