By Matthew Barrett
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After last week's reshuffle of the Secretaries and Ministers of State, and this week's reshuffle of Parliamentary Private Secretaries, it's possible to investigate the state of a dying breed: the backbenchers who've always been loyal. The list below features the Conservative MPs who meet the following criteria:
I've excluded Nigel Evans, who is a Deputy Speaker, and I've noted their constituencies and years first elected. It's also perhaps worth noting Arbuthnot, Dorrell and Yeo are Select Committee chairmen.
If you count only the European and Lords rebellions, there are 40 loyal backbenchers remaining, but if you consider all substantive rebellions, there are only 24 loyal backbenchers. This number drops to 17 if you count only those who voted for the Government's plans to abolish the House of Lords, rather than simply didn't rebel – 7 of the above MPs chose to abstain on the Lords vote.
The list illustrates the need for Team Cameron to start rehabilitating Europe and Lords rebels. To be sure, the 24 MPs contain some talented names, including Chris Skidmore, Kwasi Kwarteng and Steve Barclay, but if the Prime Minister wants to carry out a comprehensive reshuffle in the future, he will surely need to expand his backbench options – especially as a quarter of the MPs above were elected at or before the 1992 general election.