Liz Truss: The East of England MPs taking a seat at cabinet

As new PM Liz Truss's first cabinet takes shape, there are already people at Westminster making barbed comments about an "East Anglian mafia" running the country.

You have to go back to the mid-1990s, when Conservative Prime Minister John Major was in his second term, to find a time when we had so many MPs from the region around the cabinet table.

David Cameron came close, but that's only if you count Grant Shapps, whose Welwyn Hatfield seat in Hertfordshire is technically in the region, but not regarded as East Anglia historically.

Most of those who've been given jobs are long-term colleagues. Most of them became MPs at about the same time.

Politically speaking, they grew up together, campaigned in each other's seats, and have become good friends.

Ms Truss is the South West Norfolk MP and has appointed Suffolk Coastal MP Therese Coffey as her deputy prime minister and health secretary.

Ms Coffey is a fellow karaoke fan and lover of late-night parties.

But who, taking on such a difficult job, wouldn't want to surround themselves with friends they know well and trust?

That is partly true, but there's another reason why Ms Coffey, Chloe Smith (Norwich North), Brandon Lewis (Great Yarmouth), James Cleverly (Braintree), Kemi Badenoch (Saffron Walden) and Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) are all in the cabinet - they are hard workers.

So that makes seven members from the region in the 31-member cabinet; eight if you include Chris Heaton-Harris, who becomes secretary of state for Northern Ireland, as his Daventry seat in Northamptonshire is in the BBC East region, although it's not in many other definitions of "the East of England".

They have have a track record of applying themselves to problems and, quietly and meticulously, trying to get them solved, often without any great fanfare, even if some journalists might call them "a bit boring".

Ms Badenoch gets her place in cabinet in part because she made a strong showing in the leadership race, and giving her a senior job helps unite the party.

But, like the prime minister, she likes thinking "outside the box" - a quality Liz Truss admires.

Essentially, these are the sort of people that the PM wants in her government - people who will get on with the job, and not spend lots of time on media appearances and picking high profile fights with colleagues.

Ms Truss wants this government to be about delivery, because she knows that is the only way her party stands a chance of winning the next general election.

And she's relying on her friends to help her.

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