Rishi Sunak will reshuffle his cabinet this morning with Nadhim Zahawi set to be replaced as Conservative Party chair after he was sacked over his tax affairs, Sky News understands.
Allies of Boris Johnson have been touting him as a potential successor, but others have been calling for someone who can create a “positive headline” to help turn around the party’s fortunes in the polls.
The party chair is responsible for party administration and overseeing the Conservative Campaign Headquarters (CCHQ).
Here, Sky News looks at the potential runners and riders.
Boris Johnson
There has been speculation of a Johnson comebackafter Jacob Rees-Mogg said he has “all the right attributes” to be party chairman.
The senior Tory MP and close ally of the former PM told GB News on Sunday: “He is charismatic, he rallies the troops. He’s a sort of fully-loaded Conservative. So I think that type of personality would be a very good one for a party chairman.”
However, others have warned such a move would be divisive, while Mr Rees-Mogg on Tuesday conceded the former prime minister’s return to the front bench is unlikely.
Advertisement
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
0:36
Mr Rees-Mogg supported Boris Johnson right to the end of his tenure as prime minister
“I think he would be a brilliant chairman, but he’s not going to be chairman”, he told Sky News.
“The person who is going to be chairman needs to be someone who is close to the prime minister and also very charismatic.”
Paul Scully
The Tory vice chair under Theresa May and deputy chair under Boris Johnson, minister for London Paul Scully is seen as someone with the right skills and experience to replace Mr Zahawi.
Ex-cabinet minister Theresa Villiers is among those endorsing him, telling Sky News: “Paul is a top campaigner. He has done brilliant work in this constituency and did very well when he was Deputy Chair at CCHQ.
“He knows how important it is to engage with minority ethnic groups and he also understands London which is a key electoral battleground.”
Justin Tomlinson
Image: Justin Tomlinson is the Conservative MP for North Swindon, and has been an MP continuously since 6 May 2010.
Pic:Uk Parliament
A relative outsider is the Conservative MP for North Swindon, Justin Tomlinson.
He was deputy chair during the successful Bexley by-election in December 2021 – the last by-election the Conservatives won.
Mr Tomlinson quit his position in July 2022 to help Kemi Badenoch launch her failed leadership bid, but prior to being an MP he ran a business supplying Conservative associations with their campaigning materials and is known to be something of a “campaigning geek” among colleagues.
One MP told Sky News: “With a general election looming, we need someone with a strong track record of campaigning and fundraising. Justin Tomlinson is probably the strongest campaigner we have.”
Another did not go as far as naming him but said he would do a “brilliant job” if picked as chairman.
Gillian Keegan
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
0:31
‘No way to stop teacher strike’, says Education Secretary Gillian Keegan.
The current education secretary has also been tipped for the role.
In an article looking at Mr Zahawi’s potential successors, Paul Goodman, the editor of Conservative Home website, said: “Downing Street will want an appointment that creates a positive headline. It may take the view that the appointment of a woman will suit.”
The women in cabinet are Suella Braverman, Penny Mordaunt, Therese Coffey, Gillian Keegan, Kemi Badenoch, and Michelle Donelan.
Mr Goodman said: “The first is too senior, the second too ambitious, the third associated with Liz Truss and the fourth difficult though not impossible to move, given her pivotal role at education. Such an appointment would undoubtedly create a splash.”
Penny Mordaunt
Image: Penny Mourdant dropped out of the race to allow Rishi Sunak to become PM last year Pic:AP
Commons leader Penny Mordaunt is reportedly keen on replacing Mr Zahawi at CCHQ and is said to have pitched her credentials alongside Business Secretary Grant Shapps during last week’s cabinet away day.
Gavin Barwell, a Conservative peer and former chief of staff to Mrs May, said that while Mr Shapps has done the job before, Ms Mordaunt “is probably the best choice”.
He said in the run-up to the election the party chair needs to be an important figure who can communicate with media and has experience campaigning in marginal seats.
He told Times Radio: “When you look back at Rishi Sunak’s cabinet when he put it together, I felt Penny didn’t really get a role big enough to suit her talents, so this would give her a front and centre role in the run-up to the election.”
Priti Patel
Image: Priti Patel is currently on the backbenches
A popular figure on the right of the party and well-liked among the Tory grassroots, Priti Patel is among the high-profile names tipped to replace Mr Zahawi.
While she has previously turned down the role, sources close to the former home secretary have not ruled out her return to the cabinet, according to the Telegraph.
Lee Anderson
Image: Lee Anderson was part of the Red Wall intake in the 2019 election
Red Wall MP Lee Anderson has also been named as someone who could replace Mr Zahawi.
Marco Longhi, the Conservative MP for Dudley North, put a poll on Twitter asking who agrees with him that Mr Anderson “would make a great chairman of the Conservative Party”.
While more than 72% of those who responded voted no, Mr Longhi suggested the hard left had got hold of the poll and the results show “how worried they would be”.
However, it is unlikely Mr Anderson would be given the role.
Image: William Hague has distanced himself from becoming party chair
After Mr Zahawi’s sacking, rumours swirled that former Tory leader William Hague could make a return to frontline politics by filling the vacancy.
But Lord Hague, who is a close ally of Mr Sunak, quickly shut down that speculation.
“Since I’ve seen reports of people placing bets on me being the new party chairman, please be aware that I will absolutely not be returning to politics in any shape or form, including that one,” he said.
It was in the evening that the bombing started to intensify.
Salah Jundia, his father and brothers huddled together in their home in Shujaiyya, just east of Gaza City, trying to work out what to do.
It was too risky for them to leave at night. There were a lot of them too. Extended family living across four storeys. They decided they would wait until after dawn prayers.
The explosion tore through the building just before 5am, collapsing one storey on to the next.
Image: The aftermath of Israel’s bombing campaign in Shujaiyya, just east of Gaza City
Image: Salah Jundia
Jundia says he survived because pieces of bedroom furniture fell on top of him.
Then he looked for his father and brothers.
“I found one of them calling for help. I removed the rubble covering him with my hands. Then I saw another brother covered in rubble but he was dead,” he told Sky News.
Jundia added: “My father was also dead. My other brother was also dead. We got them out and that is when I saw that the whole building had collapsed.”
Over the next few hours, they scrambled to rescue who they could.
An aunt and uncle and one of their children, Shaimaa. Uncle Imad and his son Mohammad. The bodies of Montasir and Mustaf.
Image: One of the child victims of the attack on the home near the Gaza City
Image: Another one of child victims of the attack
Jundia says he could hear cries for help, but they were coming from deep in the rubble and were impossible to reach.
The rescue teams on site – civil defence they are called – did not have the kit to clear through three floors of 500 square metres, 30cm slabs of concrete.
Image: Rescuers drilling to try and reach the people trapped below the rubble
Image: Efforts to free those trapped beneath the rubble near the Gaza City
In the afternoon, Jundia says Israel’s Defence Forces (IDF) told rescue teams to leave as they would be resuming their bombardment.
Jundia buried the bodies he had managed to pull out but he knew 15 of his family members, 12 of them children, were still somewhere inside the rubble, still crying for help.
He made a desperate video appeal, begging the Red Cross and Arab countries to pressure Israel to grant access to the site. It was picked up on a few social media accounts.
Israel won’t allow heavy equipment into Gaza. No diggers or bulldozers, nor the fuel or generators to run them.
They say it will fall into Hamas’s hands.
It was a major sticking point during the ceasefire and it is a major issue now as the bombardment continues, given the fact that hundreds if not thousands of civilians might survive if there were the equipment to extract them.
Image: Members of Salah Jundia’s family left alive after the attack
Image: Salah Jundia and his surviving family
Civil defence trying to get to the Jundia family home over the next few days were halted because the IDF were in the vicinity. A family friend tried himself and was killed.
The footage that our camera teams have shot in Shujaiyya over the past two weeks shows how civil defence teams struggle to save those who are trapped and injured with the most rudimentary of equipment – plastering trowels, sledgehammers, ropes and small drills.
“The tight siege stops civil defence equipment from getting in,” says one.
They added: “So we are taking much longer to respond to these events. Time is a factor in getting these people out. So we call immediately for the necessary equipment to be allowed in for the civil defence to use.”
The IDF say they are investigating the circumstances around the Jundia family as a result of our enquiries.
In relation to the access of heavy equipment into Gaza, they say they work closely with international aid organisations to enable the delivery of humanitarian activities in accordance with international law.
The last contact Jundia had from beneath the rubble was a phone call from his uncle Ziad, three days after the strike.
“The line was open for 25 seconds then it went dead. We don’t know what happened. We tried to call, but there was no answer,” he says.
He and his family were displaced several times before they returned home to Shujaiyya – to Rafah in the south, then Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah.
Along the way, Jundia lost one brother and a nephew to Israeli bombs.
“We were happy and all the family came back. We went back to our house. It was damaged, but we improvised and we lived in it. We have nothing to do with the resistance. We are not interested in wars. But we have been gravely harmed,” he says.
China’s economy performed better than expected in the first quarter of the year – but it reflects a moment in time before the explosive trade war with the US, which has seen the world’s two biggest economies effectively decouple.
Economists had predicted that gross domestic product would grow by about 5.1% in January to March, compared with a year earlier. In the end, it grew 5.4%.
But these impressive figures obscure the very serious challenges China’s economy is facing in the wake of Donald Tump’s trade war – and it is almost certain growth will not remain this strong as the year goes on.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
It was in the evening that the bombing started to intensify.
Salah Jundia, his father and brothers huddled together in their home in Shujaiyya, just east of Gaza City, trying to work out what to do.
It was too risky for them to leave at night. There were a lot of them too. Extended family living across four storeys. They decided they would wait until after dawn prayers.
The explosion tore through the building just before 5am, collapsing one storey on to the next.
Image: The remains of Salah Jundia’s home in Shujaiyya, just east of Gaza City
Image: Salah Jundia
Jundia says he survived because pieces of bedroom furniture fell on top of him.
Then he looked for his father and brothers.
“I found one of them calling for help. I removed the rubble covering him with my hands. Then I saw another brother covered in rubble but he was dead,” he told Sky News.
Jundia added: “My father was also dead. My other brother was also dead. We got them out and that is when I saw that the whole building had collapsed.”
Over the next few hours, they scrambled to rescue who they could.
Image: One of the child victims of the attack on the home near the Gaza City
Image: Another one of child victims of the attack
An aunt and uncle and one of their children, Shaimaa. Uncle Imad and his son Mohammad. The bodies of Montasir and Mustaf.
Jundia says he could hear cries for help, but they were coming from deep in the rubble and were impossible to reach.
The rescue teams on site – civil defence they are called – did not have the kit to clear through three floors of 500 square metres, 30cm slabs of concrete.
Image: Rescuers drilling to try and reach the people trapped below the rubble
Image: Efforts to free those trapped beneath the rubble near the Gaza City
In the afternoon, Jundia says Israel’s Defence Forces (IDF) told rescue teams to leave as they would be resuming their bombardment.
Jundia buried the bodies he had managed to pull out but he knew 15 of his family members, 12 of them children, were still somewhere inside the rubble, still crying for help.
He made a desperate video appeal, begging the Red Cross and Arab countries to pressure Israel to grant access to the site. It was picked up on a few social media accounts.
Israel won’t allow heavy equipment into Gaza. No diggers or bulldozers, nor the fuel or generators to run them.
They say it will fall into Hamas’s hands.
It was a major sticking point during the ceasefire and it is a major issue now as the bombardment continues, given the fact that hundreds if not thousands of civilians might survive if there were the equipment to extract them.
Image: Members of Salah Jundia’s family left alive after the attack
Image: Salah Jundia and his surviving family
Civil defence trying to get to the Jundia family home over the next few days were halted because the IDF were in the vicinity. A family friend tried himself and was killed.
The footage that our camera teams have shot in Shujaiyya over the past two weeks shows how civil defence teams struggle to save those who are trapped and injured with the most rudimentary of equipment – plastering trowels, sledgehammers, ropes and small drills.
“The tight siege stops civil defence equipment from getting in,” says one.
They added: “So we are taking much longer to respond to these events. Time is a factor in getting these people out. So we call immediately for the necessary equipment to be allowed in for the civil defence to use.”
The IDF say they are investigating the circumstances around the Jundia family as a result of our enquiries.
In relation to the access of heavy equipment into Gaza, they say they work closely with international aid organisations to enable the delivery of humanitarian activities in accordance with international law.
The last contact Jundia had from beneath the rubble was a phone call from his uncle Ziad, three days after the strike.
“The line was open for 25 seconds then it went dead. We don’t know what happened. We tried to call, but there was no answer,” he says.
He and his family were displaced several times before they returned home to Shujaiyya – to Rafah in the south, then Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah.
Along the way, Jundia lost one brother and a nephew to Israeli bombs.
“We were happy and all the family came back. We went back to our house. It was damaged, but we improvised and we lived in it. We have nothing to do with the resistance. We are not interested in wars. But we have been gravely harmed,” he says.