The Prime Minister has confirmed a significant Cabinet reshuffle this morning, with promotion decisions based exclusively on which ministers demonstrated a functional understanding of the mute button during yesterday’s three-hour video conference on regional infrastructure funding.
The reshuffle sees Angela Rayner elevated to a newly created role of Deputy Prime Minister for Basic Technical Competence, following her exemplary record of not once broadcasting the sound of her kettle boiling to the entire Cabinet over the past eighteen months. Sources close to the Prime Minister suggest her ability to locate the camera icon without assistance was also noted favourably during the assessment process.
Meanwhile, the former Transport Secretary has been moved sideways to a junior position in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport after spending eleven minutes of yesterday’s meeting asking if anyone could hear him whilst unmuted and at full volume. The incident, which occurred during a sensitive discussion about HS2 cost overruns, marks the fourth consecutive Cabinet session in which he has demonstrated what one colleague described as “a almost supernatural inability to grasp cause and effect in the digital realm”.
“We have been using this technology since March 2020,” said Jennifer Hardwick, a civil servant who has attended more than four hundred virtual ministerial meetings. “At a certain point you stop attributing it to the learning curve and start wondering if some of these people have ever actually used a computer for anything other than viewing it with suspicion.”
The reshuffle also includes the demotion of three ministers who have consistently failed to understand that their camera remains active during comfort breaks, and the sideways movement of one Cabinet member who spent the entirety of last week’s emergency session appearing as a potato due to an Instagram filter he could not disable.
Notably, the Chancellor retains his position despite never having successfully shared his screen, largely because economic literacy is still considered marginally more important than PowerPoint proficiency. However, he has been issued with what Downing Street calls a “final warning” after last month’s budget presentation, during which his nine-year-old daughter was briefly visible conducting what appeared to be a gymnastics routine in the background whilst he discussed fiscal drag.
“The Prime Minister has made it clear that digital competence is now a core requirement of ministerial office,” said Robert Patterson, a Number 10 spokesman who spent four minutes trying to unmute himself before delivering this statement. “We cannot continue to be a government that loses fifteen minutes of every meeting to explaining how to enable gallery view.”
The reshuffle takes immediate effect, though the formal announcement was delayed by twenty minutes this morning after the Prime Minister accidentally enabled a virtual background showing a tropical beach during what was meant to be a serious moment of constitutional significance.