Anna Soubry replaced by Jane Ellison as public health minister
Monday, October 7, 2013 at 22:00
Simon Clark

Well, it was fun while it lasted.

Anna Soubry's extraordinary stint as public health minister will never be forgotten by those who witnessed her behaviour.

If I'm honest, I still have a sneaky admiration for her.

I like feisty politicians and Soubry is certainly that. If she loses her seat at the next election (it's a marginal, I believe) I'm sure she'll go down fighting with all guns blazing.

Moving her to the Ministry of Defence where she's in charge of the army is quite appropriate, really.

I did however lose patience with her towards the end.

Her performance in front of the European Scrutiny Committee was poor. She didn't seem to be on top of her brief.

The proximity of senior civil servant Andrew Black, sitting next to her, also suggested someone who was having her strings pulled.

The independent image she had cultivated suddenly seemed rather hollow.

The final straw was her recent declaration that she started smoking in her teens because of the "glamorous" packaging.

Really? I don't like calling anyone a liar so let's just say it didn't ring true.

Anyway, here are a couple of tweets that were posted this afternoon. They speak for themselves.

Nice to see that Sarah Wollaston has a sense of humour. As it happens I quite like her too!

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