Rishi Sunak has continued the recent trend of having very large Cabinets, appointing 31 ministers to his top team.
The new Prime Minister’s inner circle had to cram around an extended table in Downing Street on Wednesday for their first meeting.
In recent years, UK leaders have taken to creating more and more posts at the top of government as they look to reward allies.
Mr Sunak also accommodated supporters of his predecessors, Liz Truss and Boris Johnson, in a bid to patch up party unity.
It means Britain continues its trend of having unusually large Cabinets compared to other countries around the world.
Emmanuel Macron, the French President, has just 19 members in his top team, while Olaf Scholz, the German Chancellor, makes do with only 17.
In Japan, the size of the Cabinet is 20, and in Australia it is 23. Meanwhile, the US cabinet features 25 ministers and officials.
Only Canada, led by Justin Trudeau, outstrips Britain with its massive ministerial team of 39.
Mr Sunak has appointed 22 full Cabinet members, including himself, and dished at a further nine roles to ministers “attending Cabinet”.
Overall, his top team is exactly the same size as Ms Truss’s, and is two smaller than the first group assembled by Mr Johnson. But it is larger than the first Cabinets of Theresa May, who had 27 ministers, David Cameron, who had 30, and Tony Blair, who had 26.
The most frivolous of recent prime ministers was Gordon Brown, who chose to have 39 members in his inner circle.
But modern Cabinets are much larger than in years gone by. Margaret Thatcher’s first top team was made up of only 22 people.
( curtesy yahoo news)
