Arabic version: بادينوخ تجري تعديلاً في حكومة الظل المحافظة

According to BBC News, Sir Mel Stride and Dame Priti Patel have left the shadow cabinet in a major reshuffle by Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch. Andrew Griffith has been appointed shadow chancellor, replacing Sir Mel, while Tom Tugendhat succeeds Dame Priti as shadow foreign secretary. Badenoch is forming a new top team before the party’s October conference.

Claire Coutinho, previously shadow energy secretary, will become shadow business secretary after maternity leave and serve as Griffith’s deputy. Badenoch said Sir Mel had helped the party rebuild economic credibility and become an effective opposition. Sir Mel, appointed after Badenoch’s 2024 leadership election, said serving in the role had been a “great honour”.

Griffith said the Conservatives would deliver “an economic revolution” through lower taxes, renewed drilling to cut energy costs, reduced red tape and changes to Labour’s Employment Rights Act. Before becoming MP for Arundel and South Downs in 2019, he was a senior executive at Sky and chairman of Just Eat. Labour chair Bridget Phillipson called him “a key architect of Liz Truss’s disastrous mini-Budget”, while Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesperson Daisy Cooper and Reform UK shadow chancellor Robert Jenrick also criticised the appointment.

Dame Priti, shadow foreign secretary since 2024, will return to the backbenches and take an international role strengthening Conservative links with sister parties and centre-right movements abroad. Damian Hinds becomes shadow health and social care secretary after Stuart Andrew confirmed his return to the backbenches. Katie Lam has been named shadow housing secretary after Sir James Cleverly left the front bench to pursue a London mayoral bid.