Cheerleaders

Odds and ends from the reshuffle: There are around 11 million families in the UK with dependent children (though it's harder to work out how many with children of school age). There are around 3 million people on benefits controlled by the Department of Work and Pensions. I suspect Tory strategists believed they were unlikely to turn round the voting intentions of claimants with a new minister, but school-gate conversations about Nicky Morgan might well be less toxic than those about Michael Gove.

Meanwhile, I hope tv and radio producers will think twice, after this weekend, when offered "ministers-for-tv-and-radio" Gove, Hague and Esther McVey as contributors. Let's have ministers with real responsibilities until the official six-week election campaign opens at the end of March.