The Reshuffle: How do the Reds and the Blues star players match up after their half-time substitutions?

Rather like football, politics is a highly tribal pursuit full of stars and brilliant players, but in the end, it’s a team sport. This week and last the Conservative and Labour “team managers” moved some of their players around in an effort to sharpen up the attack as well as shoring up their more defensive lines. For the parliamentary term just kicking off, the Labour side looks to have the advantage in terms of man/woman to woman/man marking…

Education: Gillian Keegan v Bridget Phillipson

Two Northern women, the Tory growing up in Liverpool and the other, a Geordie, well matched on paper but the gap between the pair on the political pitch is striking. Keegan’s recent F-bomb hot mic moment was something of a shocking own goal just before half time – and would have been even more embarrassing if the school buildings scandal wasn’t an even bigger disaster. Keegan can show a sort of dogged, resigned stamina at the despatch box, but it’s Phillipson who shows cool composure in front of goal, albeit quite often her counterpart gifts her an open goal. A fairly new arrival, Keegan might find herself out in the next transfer window. Phillipson’s value, meanwhile, is growing with every week.

Treasury: Jeremy Hunt v Rachel Reeves

These two are the strongest attacking midfielders in their respective squads. Neither is well suited to a purely attacking game and their battles are usually fairly clinical on both sides, but they can occasionally manage to assist their respective captains. The Starmer-Reeves partnership feels easier, closer and more natural than the Sunak-Hunt one. Able as he is, Hunt isn’t rated by the Tory member fan base, who find his caution in tackling tax cuts one of the most disappointing aspects of their team’s recent record. The fact that Truss and Kwarteng were sent off with lifetime bans seems only to have endeared them to the Tory “ultras”. Their attempt to re-invent the rules of the game and “do something different” fell foul of the authorities.

Home: Suella Braverman v Yvette Cooper

The most flamboyant performative player on the Tory side, Braverman used to be a firm fan favourite. But while her moves are often audacious and attention-grabbing, all too often she loses the ball to Cooper, who then outflanks Braverman via Cooper’s celebrated “safe and secure routes”. Braverman generally promises more than she can deliver and having been sacked by the previous manager (Truss) only to be re-hired by Sunak, it’s still not that clear why she’s in the team. Cooper has, as with others in a red shirt, greatly benefitted from the weakness in her principal opponent.

Health: Steve Barclay v Wes Streeting

It’s almost embarrassing how easily Streeting outplays Barclay, nutmegging him on the industrial disputes, dribbling past him on clinical training and scoring time and again on what is, admittedly, a pitch that has traditionally favoured Labour. The only upside for Barclay is that he hasn’t let even more balls in his team’s net.

Levelling Up: Michael Gove v Angela Rayner

An interesting contest awaits us here, with sharply contrasting styles of play. Rayner hasn’t had to play in this sort of position – large and complex spending department – since she was shadow education secretary when Jeremy Corbyn was running the team, an era when there was famously no one covering Labour’s right wing. The highly experienced and articulate Gove would be wise to resist the urge to show off or patronise his new opponent; as retired coach Boris Johnson, Oliver Dowden and others can attest, those big wedgy shoes can be used to devastating effect in a sliding tackle.

Team managers: Rishi Sunak v Keir Starmer

Question marks, surely, over Sunak’s tactics this season as well as some of his team choices. Much is hoped for from newly promoted Claire Coutinho, who has been personally mentored by Sunak, and Grant Shapps, but the likes of Michelle Donelan and Mel Stride haven’t made much impact, while Gillian Keegan has been Kevin Keegan, displaying all the agility of a concrete slab. Sunak’s reliance on his “five pledges” has also proved too big a gamble in practice, and the Blue Army’s fans are restless. As with Southampton FC, which Sunak supports out of commendable local loyalty, recent relegation has left his side bewildered and confused.

By contrast, not much was expected when Starmer took over his relegated club, at a time when Johnson seemed set to be the master of the premier political league for a decade or more, the Sir Alex Ferguson of this game. A bit more of a Roy Hodgson, Starmer has built his side up man by man, woman by woman, and given them suitably inspiring-sounding but vague “missions” to fulfil. Failing policies have been sent straight to the changing room. His many critics among Reds loyalists have been silenced, however, and his runaway 15-point lead at the top of the league is all the answer he needs to silence his enemies. He’s even made progress with notoriously hostile Scottish crowds. Some of his friends argue he could use his left wing more, but Starmer is unconvinced by such chants. He does his talking on the pitch, gives it 110 per cent and, like his beloved Arsenal, can confidently look forward to further glory.