David Cameron has given his government a transfusion of Toryism. He has announced significant changes at the lower level of his cabinet, and an extensive reshuffle of the entire government is still underway, but there have been no changes at the very top of government and, on the crucial issue of the economy, he has indicated that he intends to press ahead with George Osborne’s deficit reduction strategy. But he has appointed an economic development minister. At the start of the day I said that journalists enjoy reshuffles because they involve personality soap opera. But the appointment that really seems to excite Number 10 the most involves someone unknown outside the business world: Paul Deighton, the former Goldman Sachs executive who ran LOCOG. He has now got the job of ensuring that Osborne’s infrastructure investment programme rescues the economy.
The Conservative wing of the government - which is most of the government - has become more traditional, more Eurosceptic, more authoritarian. In other words, more rightwing. At least, that is the impression given by the changes announced so far. The shift is not dramatic, but it is noticeable. As I said earlier, it could mark the moment when Cameron’s Conservative modernisation project was finally dispatched and put out of its misery,. At the top, the government has also become more male and white, but junior appointments are expected to compensate for that.
Cameron has embarked on a fairly extensive clear out at junior ministerial level. We have not seen the full list yet, but it is clear that this reshuffle will involve quite extensive personnel changes. In his book about Tony Blair’s government, Jonathan Powell, Blair’s chief of staff, said: “A prime minister should always err on the side of sacking more people and bringing on more young talent faster.” Cameron seems to be following his advice.
Cameron is clearing the decks for a U-turn on Heathrow. Although the reshuffle does not mark a change of economic course - which is why, in the long run, it may turn out not to matter much - the replacement of Justine Greening as transport secretary does not make sense unless you accept that Cameron wants to have the option of backing a third runway in the next Tory manifesto (despite what Downing Street are saying). It is also possible that the appointment of Jeremy Hunt as health secretary could lead to the Health Act reforms being watered down, although No 10 are not saying that and at this stage we don’t know how Hunt will choose to handle the portfolio.
That’s it from me for today. I’ll be back with more tomorrow.
Grayling is not only the first non-lawyer to become lord chancellor in modern times. He is also the first holder of that office who might reasonably regard himself as on the way up in politics; it was because the role was always seen as a retirement job that it used to carry such an attractive pension. If Grayling is looking to advance his career, or even the prospects of his party at the next election, he will find there are easy headlines to be won by attacking the judges for being soft on sentencing or for upholding the human rights of unpopular members of society.
That would make it much harder for Grayling to achieve the effective working relationship that the he needs to have with the lord chief justice. There are many responsibilities in which the two of them must concur. To take just one example, the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 gives the lord chief justice and the lord chancellor joint responsibility for dealing with complaints against judges. Acting together, they have the power to sack certain judicial office-holders. Even the most senior can be reprimanded. There is certainly scope for mischief here.
This is bizarre. Why, in the midst of all this economic doom and gloom, and with no sign of a growth plan on the horizon, would you sack the leader of the Commons (who he?) and the secretary of state for Wales (who she?) but leave your discredited Treasury team untouched?
Chris Grayling will argue for rehabilitation from a distinctly Conservative point of view. The departure of Greening and Villiers from Transport paves the way for the Tory side of the coalition at least to commit to doing what it takes to increase aviation capacity in the South East. Owen Paterson returning to mainland politics will also be welcomed by Tory MPs. It’ll be interesting to see what flexibility he is given on the EU aspects of his department, one former DEFRA minister told me recently that 80 per cent of its work relates to Brussels.
Take what seems to be the main talking point for journalists: the replacement of Ken Clarke by Chris Grayling as justice secretary. It’s a “lurch to the right”, say pundits, excitedly. (Why, incidentally, to parties only ever “lurch” to the right? When did you last hear of someone “lurching” to the centre?)
No one outside Westminster, though, will expect anything to change. The supremacy of the European convention on human rights, like the preference for non-custodial sentences, is regarded as an intrinsic part of the system, something beyond the capacity of any minister to alter.
Downing Street have put out a press notice about the appointment of Paul Deighton, the LOCOG chief executive, as a Treasury minister in charge of economic delivery. Here it is.
The chief executive of LOCOG– the body which is organising the Olympic and Paralympic Games–is joining the Government as the Minister responsible for economic delivery to lead the Government’s drive to transform Britain’s infrastructure and support its wider economic agenda.
He will take up his post as Commercial Secretary to the Treasury at the start of next year, once he has completed his responsibilities with the Olympic and Paralympic Games. Mr Deighton will be a Minister in the House of Lords and report to the Chancellor of the Exchequer as a Treasury Minister. His position will be unpaid.
He will have responsibility for implementation of the 30-year National Infrastructure Plan published in 2010, including the guarantees for infrastructure being made possible by the legislation being introduced to Parliament this week. Specific examples include High Speed Two, Thames Tunnel, new road and rail projects (eg. A14, Northern Hub), rollout of high speed broadband, and new-build nuclear.
In doing this he is being tasked with removing any unnecessary blockages that are holding back projects from happening.
His responsibilities will also include supporting the Secretary of State for Culture on the Olympics legacy, working with DCMS Ministers and Lord Coe in his role as Legacy Ambassador.
Mr Deighton is currently the Chief Executive Officer of LOCOG, the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games. He took up this post in 2005 shortly after London won the bid to stage the Games. Prior to joining London 2012, he was the Chief Operating Officer of Goldman Sachs in Europe, and a member of its European Management Committee. At Goldman Sachs he worked in a variety of management and client-facing roles for over 22 years, and was appointed a partner of the firm in 1996. Before joining Goldman Sachs in 1983, he worked for both Security Pacific National Bank and Bank of America. Mr Deighton was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge.
The current Commercial Secretary, Lord Sassoon, will continue in his post until then. He had informed the Chancellor earlier in the year that he wished to return to the private sector in due course when an appropriate successor was appointed.
Four Conservatives from the 2010 intake have been given ministerial jobs, Number 10 has just announced.
Helen Grant becomes a minister for women and equalities, partly based at justice and partly based at another department (presumably culture, which is now in charge of equality issues). Grant, MP for Maidstone, was the first black woman to be elected as a Conservative MP.
Graham Allen, the Labour MP who chairs the political and constitutional reform committee, has written to David Cameron inviting him to give evidence to the committee about reshuffles.
As the power to appoint, dismiss and move ministers is a prerogative power of the prime minister, you are in a unique position to provide the committee with an insight into the reshuffle process and the reasons why reshuffles are undertaken.
The prime minister now gives evidence to the liaison committee, but in the past Cameron and his predecessors have always refused requests like this. Allen is trying it on. But there's no harm in that.
According to Charlotte Higgins, the Guardian's chief arts writer, Jeremy Hunt was the most unpopular culture secretary with the arts world since the post was created.
As one senior British cultural figure put it, a line echoed repeatedly on Twitter this afternoon: "Jim Naughtie spoke the thoughts of the entire culture sector when he Freudian-slipped him.
He departs, as Steve Hilton did, in frustration at a lack of support for radicalism. One friend of his points out that Number 10 and CCHQ have done ‘close to f all’ to help on Police and Crime Commissioners with the result that the Conservatives have been left with a set of underwhelming candidates. It also didn’t help that Herbert, as Pauline Neville Jones did, had an extremely tense relationship with Theresa May.
Kenneth Clarke is no longer a full member of the cabinet. As minister for portfolio, he will be a minister of state in the Cabinet Office, on a minister of state’s salary. He will attend cabinet, but not as a full member. Asked what he would actually do, the prime minister’s spokesman said he would contribute to his experience. It all sounded very vague, and the spokesman did not talk about Clarke being tasked with defending the government on the media, although Clarke will remain in charge of the justice bill. (See 3.20pm.)
Grant Shapps, the new Tory chairman, will also be a minister without portfolio at minister of state rank.
Lady Warsi has been designated a “senior minister of state”. This title does not seem to have been used before, but Downing Street are using it to describe her. She will be partly based in the Foreign Office and party in the Department for Communities in her new role as Foreign Office minister and minister for faith.
Number 10 said the aim of the reshuffle was “to ensure that we have the right ministers in place to deliver the government’s programme”. During its first two years, the coalition passed a lot of legislation, the spokesman said. Now the government is “at the delivery stage”, he went on. “People have been appointed with that in mind.”
David Cameron is still committed to having women fill a third of ministerial positions, the spokesman said. Women and ethnic minority MPs will feature in the junior appointments being announced later, he said. When the full government list is available, the proportion of women in the government will be much the same as it was before.
The government’s policy towards Heathrow will not change as a result of the replacement of Justine Greening as transport secretary, the spokesman said. “With Heathrow, there is a very clear coailtion commitment [not to approve a third runway]”, the spokesman said. Asked about Boris Johnson’s claim that the government’s policy is “mad”, the spokesman said: “The policy has not changed. There will be a process, beginning this autumn, when we will look at this issue of capacity.”
Maria Miller, the new culture secretary, will also take charge of equalities, which in future will be based in the culture department.
The spokesman did not deny reports that Iain Duncan Smith turned down the justice secretary post. “I’m not going to go into detail,” he said when asked about it.
The Tory/Lib Dem balance in the new government will be very similar to what it was in the old one, the spokesman siad.
Further appointments will be made later this afternoon and tonight, but the full list of all government appointments won’t be available until tomorrow.
Oliver Letwin, the Cabinet Office minister, and David Willetts, the universities minister, will continue to attend cabinet.
Here is the latest list of ministerial moves from Number 10. All these appointments are to minister of state.
(There are two categories of minister below cabinet level: minister of state and parliamentary secretary or under-secretary. Ministers of state are more senior and are paid more.)
Damian Green, the former immigration minister, has replaced Nick Herbert as a joint Home Office/Justice minister. He will also become a privy counsellor (a perk that automatically goes to cabinet ministers, and normally only to other ministers if the prime minister feels he owes them one. Cameron may feel guilty that Green has not made it into the cabinet.)
Mark Hoban, the former Treasury minister, has become employment minister, replacing Chris Grayling.
Mark Harper, the former constitutional affairs minister (who had nothing to do after Lords reform fell), has become immigration minister.
Simon Burns, the former health minister, has become a transport minister.
Mike Penning, the transport minister, becomes a Northern Ireland minister.
Andrew Robathan, a junior defence minister, moves up at the Ministry of Defence and becomes armed forces minister.
David Laws joins the government as a joint education minister and Cabinet Office minister. He seems to be replacing Sarah Teather.
Michael Fallon becomes a business minister. (The prime minister’s spokesman said he would be “the voice of business” in the department, inadvertently implying that Vince Cable, the business secretary, doesn’t represent business. Later the spokesman said he just meant Fallon would have the business brief.)
Mark Prisk, the former business minister, has become housing minister.
For Harper, Penning, Robathan, Laws, and Fallon, these appointments count as promotion, because they were previously backbenchers or more junior ministers. The others have been moved sideways, although Green can claim to have moved up because of his privy counsellorship.
I'm just back from the Number 10 lobby briefing. Downing Street have given us a list of minister of state appointments, and provided some clarification about the cabinet moves. I'll empty my notebook into this blog as soon as I can.
But, first, here's one key fact: Nick Herbert, the former policing minister, has left the government. He was being tipped for a cabinet post, perhaps justice or the environment. It sounds as if he might have stormed out in a huff, although Number 10 are not giving any details.
Andy Burnham, the shadow health secretary, says David Cameron's decision to make Jeremy Hunt health secretary shows "poor judgment". Here's the full statement that Burnham has put out.
The NHS was supposed to be the prime minister’s number one priority. Swapping one failed minister with poor judgment for another is a strange way to show that.
Right now, the NHS needs somebody who believes in its values and is ready to stand up for it. Instead, the prime minister has given it the man who reportedly tried to remove the NHS tribute from the opening ceremony of the Olympic games.
NHS staff fearful of the government’s drive to open up the NHS to full competition will take no comfort whatsoever to find a man in charge who, in his last job, bent over backwards to promote powerful private-sector interests.
Andrew Lansley’s crime was supposed to be his failure to communicate his reforms. What the prime minister doesn’t understand is it is the NHS policies that are wrong, not the way he is selling them. Appointing a ‘yes-man’ to run the NHS will not bring the change of direction in health policy that patients and staff are desperately hoping for. Judging by his record, it may make matters worse.
I welcome the new secretary of state to his role but I serve notice to him today that, unless he removes the threat to the NHS from his government’s policies, he will face the same opposition as his predecessor.
If you are interested in how the cabinet reshuffle has affected the balance of the cabinet in terms of party, educational background, gender, gender, age or parliamentary experience, then you should read this post on our data blog. It's excellent.
We've got an answer to the Michael Fallon question. (See 12.25pm.) According to ITN's Tom Bradby, he is taking a ministerial job at the Department for Business.
Ceri Goddard, chief executive of the Fawcett Society, has strongly attacked David Cameron for failing to promote more women. Here's an extract from her statement.
We now have a cabinet where men outnumber women 5 to 1 making some of the biggest budgetary decisions of this era. Despite near universal acceptance that we need more - not less - involvement of women in building our economy, the prime minister has chosen to further marginalise women’s influence on politics ...
The UK lags behind much of the world when it comes to women’s representation - we are currently ranked 57th. Other countries fare much better, even when it comes to Cabinet level posts – indeed, Sweden, Switzerland and France all have equal numbers of men and women in their cabinets. Why can’t we?
The failure to increase the number of women around the top table of politics also sends a message to other walks of life that excluding women from positions of power is acceptable.
Kenneth Clarke will continue to take the justice and security bill through the Commons in his new role as minister without portfolio, the Ministry of Justice has said. This is the bill allowing some intelligence material to be heard in civil court cases in secret hearings.
Given that this is one of the main legislative tasks facing the Ministry of Justice this year, it sounds as if Chris Grayling will be doing a job-share as justice secretary for a while.
David Jones, the new Welsh secretary Photograph: Rosie Hallam/Getty Images Photograph: Rosie Hallam/Getty Images
Here's what the Press Association has filed about David Jones, the new Welsh secretary.
North Wales MP David Jones has been promoted to Welsh Secretary in the Prime Minister's Cabinet reshuffle. The London-born 60-year-old takes over from Cheryl Gillan, who will now return to the back benches. Sources close to Chesham and Amersham MP Mrs Gillan say she is disappointed to be leaving her post. However, a number of eminent Welsh Conservatives, who preferred for the secretary to be an MP who held a seat in Wales, have expressed their delight at news of the reshuffle. Andrew RT Davies, who leads the Tories in the Welsh Assembly, said: "I look forward to continuing a close relationship with David Jones. I know he will do an excellent job. "He has been instrumental in delivering for Wales and is the right choice to take up this position." Although sources say Gillan was "gutted" to lose her Cabinet post, she insisted she had enjoyed her two-year stint as Secretary of State and was still proud to serve the Tories as an MP. Her successor, Clwyd West MP David Jones, has been Gillan's number two in the Wales Office for the past two years. He briefly served as an AM for North Wales following the sudden departure of then Welsh Tory leader Rod Richards.
Earlier I said this was the first cabinet for 15 years without an ethnic minority member. That's not right. Gordon Brown had an all-white cabinet, although Lady Scotland did attend as attorney general. I've taken out the comments that were wrong.
Labour has responded to the reshuffle. This is from Michael Dugher, the shadow Cabinet Office minister.
This is the no-change reshuffle.
No move for a failing chancellor in charge of a failing economic plan that has delivered a double-dip recession, who gave a tax cut for millionaires and who refuses to tax bank bonuses.
And there are no moves across almost all of the most senior cabinet jobs.
On Sunday David Cameron promised to 'cut through the dither', but today he was too weak to move Iain Duncan Smith from the Department of Work and Pensions and was forced to back down.
Jeremy Hunt, the man who broke the ministerial code and failed to stand up to News Corporation, is now in charge of the NHS, our most cherished national institution. This won't change David Cameron's policy of continuing with a massive top-down NHS reorganisation.
This reshuffle isn't a fresh start - it's more of the same from an out of touch and failing government that stands up for the wrong people.
Will this be the reshuffle that finally kills off David Cameron's Tory modernisation project? You could argue that Tory modernisation - if it was defined as pushing the party towards the moderate, modern centre ground - has been in ill health for some time, but this morning's appointments mark a severe setback. Look at the various policy and presentation ideas associated with modernisation.
Being green: Cameron has replaced a transport secretary (Justine Greening) seen as an obstacle to the Conservatives backing a third runway at Heathrow at the next election and replaced one environment secretary (Caroline Spelman) who was not exactly a green pin up with another (Owen Paterson) seen as a green nightmare. Damian Carrington has more on this on his blog.
Promoting women: This is going backwards. By my count, at the top of government four women have been sacked or demoted, and just two have been promoted.
Making the Tories more ethnically diverse: So far, the reshuffle has been a disaster on this front. The only ethnic minority cabinet minister, Lady Warsi, has lost her post.
Downplaying Europe: The most prominent (only?) pro-European in the party (Kenneth Clarke) has been demoted, and, with promotions for Chris Grayling and Owen Paterson, the cabinet has become more Eurosceptic.
Supporting the NHS: David Cameron once said that he could sum up his modernising politics with three letters: NHS. The Health Act badly damaged the Conservatives' public standing on health (as measured by "which party do you trust most on health?" polling), but there is little evidence to suggest that Jeremy Hunt, the new health secretary, is the man to put this right. As Paul Waugh points out (see 14.27pm), the former culture secretary is the man who wondered whether Danny Boyle's tribute to the NHS in the Olympic opening ceremony was really necessary. This is what Rachel Sylvester revealed in the Times.
When Danny Boyle first presented his plans for the Olympic opening ceremony to the Government there was some concern. The proposal to import live farmyard animals, simulate a rain cloud and recreate a village cricket match as part of his “Isles of Wonder” extravaganza passed without comment.
Then the director mentioned his desire to include a parade of nurses. Jeremy Hunt looked worried. Was it really necessary, he asked, to include this tribute to the NHS — the subject of the Government’s most controversial reforms — in a show that will be watched by a billion people worldwide? The matter was referred up to No 10 and David Cameron decided that the angels of mercy should be allowed in, so they will troop through the stadium in Stratford this week complete with hospital beds.
Doubtless, by the time we've seen the full reshuffle, the position may look different. Cameron is bound to promote some women and ethnic minority backbenchers. But, nevertheless, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that modernisation has gone into reverse.
Overall the reshuffle represents a clear shift if not quite a lurch to the right.
The appointment of Chris Grayling, initially slated to take over work and pensions, as the new justice secretary could, alongside Hunt's promotion, turn out to be the most significant announcement of a less than seismic cabinet-level reshuffle.
The Tory MP Zac Goldsmith has joined Boris Johnson and Friends of the Earth in expressing alarm about Justine Greening being moved. This is what he has posted on Twitter.
Greening’s appointment 11 months ago indicated the PM’s position on Heathrow was solid.Yielding so easily suggests panic, not principle.
And here's what Kenneth Clarke said earlier about his move to minister without portfolio.
When David Cameron first asked me to return to the frontbench, we agreed that I would serve in the cabinet for two years. I am very pleased that he has now asked me to stay on in cabinet as minister without portfolio. At my age, it is time for me to step back from the slog of running a large department, but I am delighted to have been given a more advisory political role.
My colleague Liz Ford, deputy editor of Guardian global development, has sent me this about the appointment of Justine Greening as international development secretary.
NGOs are giving a cautious welcome to the appointment of Justine Greening to the post of international development secretary.
Some may see this as a demotion for Greening, but she comes into the department at an interesting time. The UK is taking a lead role in deciding the future landscape of development (specifically what comes after the millennium development goals in 2015), which is no trivial undertaking.
But Andrew Mitchell will be a tough act to follow. During his more than two years in the role, he has raised the UK’s profile among the international donor community, landing himself a seat on a panel charged with creating a new global partnership on aid - which Greening may be obliged to take up - and one for David Cameron, who has been appointed co-chair of a UN high-level panel for post-2015 development goals.
Greening should brace herself for ongoing tussles over the amount of money the UK continues to spend on aid, from within government and from the wider development community, and on which countries it is spent (India continues to divide opinion). NGOs will also be wanting to see her develop clear strategies to end aid dependency.
But she is lucky that she will at least inherit a department with a ring-fenced budget.
Boris Johnson Photograph: Anna Gowthorpe/PA Wire Photograph: Anna Gowthorpe/PA Wire
Here, as promised, are the Boris Johnson words on the demotion of Justine Greening.
There can be only one reason to move her - and that is to expand Heathrow Airport.
It is simply mad to build a new runway in the middle of west London. Nearly a third of the victims of aircraft noise in the whole of Europe live in the vicinity of Heathrow.
Now it is clear that the government wants to ditch its promises and send yet more planes over central London. The third runway would mean more traffic, more noise, more pollution - and a serious reduction in the quality of life for hundreds of thousands of people. We will fight this all the way.
Friends of the Earth has criticised David Cameron's decision to move Justine Greening. This is from Andy Atkins, its executive director.
Justine Greening is a victim of intense aviation lobbying over airport expansion - and an economic argument that simply doesn’t add up.
She’s been shunted out of her transport job because of her opposition to a third runway at Heathrow.
We don’t need more airports or runways in the south east – they would have a devastating impact on local communities and the environment and undermine UK action on climate change.
David Cameron has tilted his cabinet to the right with a reshuffle that sees Chris Grayling taking charge of justice policy and two liberal traditionalists, Kenneth Clarke and Sir George Young, respectively demoted and sacked. The reshuffle is still underway - a large number junior ministerial moves will be announced later today, or possibly tomorrow - but the key decisions have been announced. The government is still deciding what to do about the Human Rights Act, and Grayling is likely to be much more sympathetic to the idea of replacing it with a British Bill of Rights than Clarke. The full list is available here.
Boris Johnson has used the demotion of Justine Greening as an opportunity to attack the government for not doing more to expand airport capacity in the south east of England. Greening, who represents Putney (where aircraft noise is a key issue) recently said she was opposed to the Conservative party lifting its opposition to a third runway at Heathrow. But Cameron's decision to move her, after less than a year in post, suggests that he wants the party to be able to go into the next election advocating a third runway. Johnson is strongly in favour of expanding airport capacity in the south east. But he defended Greening, saying that the third runway option was "mad".
Jeremy Hunt has staged a remarkable political comeback, being promoted from culture secretary to health secretary only months after revelations about the way his office gave special treatment to Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation during its bid for BSkyB led to calls for his resignation. He is replacing Andrew Lansley, who antagonised almost the entire medical profession with his handling of the health bill.
Cameron has stalled in his attempt to promote more women to senior posts. Two women have been promoted (Theresa Villiers and Maria Miller) but four have been demoted or sacked (Lady Warsi, Caroline Spelman, Cheryl Gillan and Justine Greening). With Warsi losing her post as Conservative co-chairman and minister without portfolio, Cameron has also lost his one ethnic minority full member of the cabinet. (Warsi will continue to attend cabinet, but not as a full member.)
Boris Johnson, the Conservative mayor of London, has criticised David Cameron's decision to move Justine Greening. According to the BBC, he has said that it shows that the government is committed to the "simply mad" policy of a new third runway at Heathrow.
Johnson, of course, wants to expand airport capacity in the south east of England, but he favours the creation of a "Boris Island" airport in the Thames estuary.
I'll post the Johnson quotes in full when I get them.
This is the first sign of the reshuffle unravelling.
And Damian Carrington, the Guardian's head of environment, has sent me this about Owen Paterson, the new environment secretary.
Owen Paterson, the new secretary of state, was shadow environment spokesman from 2003-5, and he owns a farm. The hottest item in his in-tray is the highly controversial badger cull, due to start in weeks. His record suggests he will back the farmers supporting the cull, which opponents say will cost more and achieve little in cutting TB in cattle.
My colleague Ros Taylor, editor of guardian.co.uk/law, has sent me this about the appointment of Chris Grayling as justice secretary.
Chris Grayling's appointment will be a shock to the legal establishment, not just because he is not a lawyer and previous justice secretaries were, but because as a former shadow home secretary his focus has been on crime rather than justice. Certainly Theresa May will be relieved to have an ally at the MoJ. Her relationship with Ken Clarke came under strain during Catgate In 2010 he said B&Bs should be free to turn away gay couples if they wanted (though hotels shouldn't have that right), a view which the Court of Appeal disagreed with earlier this year. It's not yet clear just how Eurosceptic he is, but if Cameron decides he wants to water down the Human Rights Act or radically redefine our relationship with Strasbourg, Grayling may just be the man to do so. He has not been afraid of bad publicity as welfare minister: the question is whether the legal establishment, which is rather more powerful than welfare claimants, will exert much influence over him.
I'm not sure Ros is quite right to say it's not clear how Eurosceptic Grayling is; I always assumed the answer was "strongly". Grayling was Liam Fox's campaign manager when Fox ran for Tory leadership in 2005.
Here is some reaction to Jeremy Hunt's appointment as health secretary.
From Rachael Maskel, head of health at the Unite union
Jeremy Hunt as the new Health Secretary has a real opportunity to ride the public mood and ensure the NHS remains a universal service, free at the point of delivery to all those in need.
The NHS has been pushed to the brink of destruction by Andrew Lansley - a minister who simply would not listen either to the patients or the professionals. Jeremy Hunt must reflect deep and hard on the errors of his predecessor and seek immediate dialogue with the NHS team and their unions. He has the power to slam the door on the increasing privatisation of the NHS.
Andrew Lansley must rank as one of the worst health secretaries since the NHS was formed in 1948. He presided over deeply, unpopular bungled reforms which heralded rising waiting lists; £20bn cuts to services; job losses to thousands of nurses and other health workers; installed an expensive, needless bureaucracy; and announced an open sesame to the private firms which put profit before patient care.
From Diane Abbott, the shadow public health minister
Murdoch’s man in Westminster is now in charge of the country’s health. You can’t trust Jeremy Hunt with the NHS.
Almost all the cabinet posts have now been settled, but we don't know much about the junior appointments. Here's the current state of play.
Promotions
Jeremy Hunt, the former culture secretary, has become health secretary.
Andrew Mitchell has been made chief whip. Although the chief whip is usually not a full member of cabinet - he just attends - this is the post that Mitchell, the former international development secretary, has always wanted.
Chris Grayling, the former welfare minister, has become justice secretary.
Theresa Villiers, the former transport minister, has been made Northern Ireland secretary
Maria Miller, the former disability minister, has become culture secretary.
David Laws has reportedly been made an education minister. That’s a promotion from the backbenches, although he will not be as senior was he was when he was briefly in cabinet as chief secretary to the Treasury.
Owen Paterson, the former Northern Ireland secretary, has become environment secretary.
Patrick McLoughlin, the former chief whip, has been made transport secretary. This is more of a sideways move than a promotion, but McLoughlin will be a full member of the cabinet and he will have a public profile, which he never had as a whip.
David Jones, a former junior Welsh Office minister, has reportedly been made Welsh secretary.
Demotions
Andrew Lansley, the former health secretary, has become Leader of the Commons.
Sir George Young, the former leader of the Commons, has left the cabinet
Kenneth Clarke has lost his post as justice secretary. But he will remain in the cabinet as a minister without portfolio.
Justine Greening, the former transport secretary, has become international development secretary.
Lady Warsi has lost her post as Conservative co-chairman. Instead she has been made a minister of state at the Foreign Office, with the right to attend cabinet, as well as being made minister for faith and communities.
Caroline Spelman has has her job as environment secretary.
Cheryl Gillan has been replaced as Welsh secretary
Edward Garnier has lost his job as solicitor general.
No change
Iain Duncan Smith has resisted an attempt to make him justice secretary. He remains as work and pensions secretary.
George Osborne, William Hague, Theresa May, Philip Hammond, Ed Davey, Michael Gove, Eric Pickles, Michael Moore, Danny Alexander and Lord Strathclyde have all kept their posts.
David Cameron used to criticise Tony Blair for moving ministers too often. He has kept most of his ministers in place for at least two years. But, on transport, his record is not so good. Channel 4's Michael Crick has been doing the sums.
Justine Greening was Transport Secretary for just 326 days, but not briefest in post - Tom King, 4 mons; Hoon, + Reid (as Trans Min) 8 mons
Patrick McLoughlin, the former chief whip, is the new transport secretary, the BBC reports.
Justine Greening, the current transport secretary, is currently in Downing Street where she has been for more than 40 minutes. Presumably there's some haggling going on over her next job.
The BBC's Nick Robinson says Iain Duncan Smith was offered the post of justice secretary last night. David Cameron wanted him to take it. But this morning Duncan Smith said he wanted to stay at welfare. Chris Grayling, the welfare minister, was expected to replace him. But now Grayling himself is going to justice.
According to Robinson, Cameron rates Duncan Smith as a communicator but favoured a move because there is "deep anxiety" in the Treasury about whether Duncan Smith has the managerial ability to oversee the introduction of universal credit smoothly.
Kenneth Clarke has just told BBC News that he was always going to stand down as justice secretary around now. When he was appointed, he and David Cameron agreed that he would only serve about two years, he said.
Edward Garnier Photograph: BBC News Photograph: /BBC News
Edward Garnier has just told BBC News that he has been sacked as solicitor general. "We have to take the rough with the smooth", he said phlegmatically.
And Chris Grayling, the welfare minister, has just arrived at Downing Street.
He is being tipped for Kenneth Clarke's post as justice secretary. He was, of course, shadow home secretary before the election, but did not make it into David Cameron's first cabinet.
ConservativeHome are tipping Chris Grayling, the welfare minister, as the new justice sectary.
Often reshuffles do not have much impact on policy. But replacing Kenneth Clarke, a liberal on home affairs issues, with Grayling, who is more authoritarian, probably would have a policy impact.
The Howard League for Penal Reform is sorry about Kenneth Clarke leaving the Ministry of Justice. This is from Frances Crook, its chief executive.
Kenneth Clarke was a breath of fresh air as justice secretary. Rather than grabbing cheap headlines, he focused on cutting reoffending and saving taxpayers’ money.
He fought to get prisoners doing an honest day’s work rather than lying around in bed. He has started to shift the balance towards community sentences that change lives and reduce crime and away from the old cliché of ‘prison works’. These policies will save money and save lives.
We look forward to working with the new Justice Secretary to push forward the coalition agreement commitment to a ‘rehabilitation revolution’, get prisoners working and reform sentencing.
Kenneth Clarke Photograph: David Gadd/Allstar/Sportsphoto Ltd. Photograph: David Gadd/Allstar/Sportsphoto Ltd./Allstar
More on Kenneth Clarke's new role. As minister without portfolio, he will sit on the national security council and the cabinet's economic committee.
That sounds as if Clarke is getting an economic role, but in practice the economic committee is huge (you can read the full membership here - pdf) and just sitting on by itself does not give him much clout. But, if George Osborne decided to use him, he could be more influential.
What is also interesting is whether Clarke gets used a "minister for the Today programme". Clarke is one of the few politicians who generally sounds affable, reasonable and likeable when he is being interviewed. But that's partly because he's cavalier about the political niceties, and liable to wade into the "gaffe" zone. Will they dare to let him out regularly?
Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, is not becoming justice secretary. He is staying where he is, according to a Number 10 source. It has also been confirmed that Michael Gove, the education secretary, is staying. David Cameron sees them both as two of his key reformers, apparently.
But is Osborne really about to embrace Clarke as a co-chancellor? Of course not. The ConservativeHome account of Clarke's role (see 9.05am) seems more accurate.
ConservativeHome is also live blogging the reshuffle and this is what it is saying about Kenneth Clarke's new job.
Ken Clarke will act as a Minister without Portfolio and will not have a specific economic focus. He will sit on the National Security Council, and therefore will retain some prestige in Cabinet. Cameron likes him and values him as a wise economic head, but he will have input on several areas of government policy. Therefore the appointment is not made to release some pressure on George Osborne, rather to keep Ken Clarke around the cabinet table.
Michael Fallon, deputy chairman of the Conservative party, has arrived at Number 10, the BBC reports. He is one of the candidates to replace Lady Warsi as co-chairman.
John Redwood, the Conservative former Welsh secretary (but not a future one, I suspect) was on Sky earlier talking about the reshuffle. He said the reshuffle was relatively unimportant because changing policy was much more important than changing personnel.
I think what the party wants is a change of direction, we want to send a sense of urgency and some new measures to inject more life into the economy ... I never thought the reshuffle was the crucial thing, I think what matters is what they do, not who does it. If the changes are all of second and third order figures in the government pecking order, it’s not sending a message that they are trying to change what they’re doing. We’ve heard that they’re just trying to change the presentation of it, but I think they need to have a thorough look at where economic policy is going.
Andrew Mitchell, the new chief whip Photograph: Jason Alden/Rex Features Photograph: Jason Alden / Rex Features
The Press Association has filed a mini profile of Andrew Mitchell, the new chief whip. Here it is.
As a self-confessed "stern disciplinarian" who supposedly earnt the nickname "Thrasher" at school, Andrew Mitchell would appear to hold the characteristics needed for the job of chief whip. The Tory stalwart is renowned for his ambition and admits to having a "competitive streak" though not in a "ruthless" way, he insists. After a stint in the 1970s as a United Nations peacekeeper he went on to work in banking but was always destined for a career in politics. While a child in Hampshire his father Sir David was elected as a Conservative MP and served as a minister under Margaret Thatcher. The father and son's time in the House of Commons coincided for a decade after the younger Mitchell was elected MP for Gedling, Nottinghamshire in 1987. He became a victim of the Labour landslide of 1997 but made it back to Westminster four years later representing Sutton Coldfield. Now viewed as a Cameron loyalist, just seven years ago he was once a fierce opponent, running opponent David Davis' campaign in the contest for the Tory leadership. Appointed International Development Secretary in May 2010 he has remained committed to enshrining in law an obligation on the UK to spend 0.7% of national income on overseas aid, a move that has not always proved popular with Tory backbenchers.
On the Today programme a few minutes ago Nick Robinson and Peter Riddell from the Institute for Government were talking about the reshuffle, and David Cameron's desire to promote more women. There are some useful figures on this in the Shuffling the Pack (pdf), an 11-page briefing about reshuffle published by the institute last week. Here's the key passage.
David Cameron famously pledged to get to a point where a third of his ministers are women; while Nick Clegg has regularly criticised his own parliamentary party’s lack of diversity. Currently just one in six ministers are women (21 of 121, including whips), but in the Commons it is just one in nine (11 of 95). And there are only 44 Conservative and Liberal Democrat women on the Commons backbenches to rectify this – 34 of whom only entered Parliament in 2010.
And there are suggestions that Patrick McLoughlin, the outgoing chief whip, could replace Justine Greening as transport secretary. This is being floated by people like Nick Robinson and Guido Fawkes, who has welcomed the proposal on his blog.
One person who is not being moved today is George Osborne, the chancellor. But should David Cameron be moving him? Here's the footage of Osborne being booed at the Paralympics last night.
For all the excitement about today's reshuffle events, it is conceivable that this brief protest will actually turn out to be more revealing about this fate of this government - because of about what is says about the primacy of economic affairs in politics - than anything being announced today.
Who's going to replace Kenneth Clarke as justice secretary? Nick Herbert, the policing minister who also serves as a justice minister, is an obvious candidate. He is generally thought to have done a good job putting the legislation creating elected police commissioners through parliament (although Tories might reconsider this assessment if Labour sweep the elections, or commissioners turn out to be a disaster). Herbert is also relatively rightwing (and so his appointment would please Tory backbenchers) and he is gay (and so putting him in cabinet would tick a diversity box). Herbert's relations with Theresa May, the home secretary (who is not moving) are said to be rather fraught, and Home Office watchers expect him to move. But some of the broadcasters are also talking about Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, as a possible candidate for this post.
It’s started. It’s hard to overstate how much excitement reshuffles generate amongst the Westminster press corps. That’s not necessarily because of their impact - often they have very little effect on the overall performance of a government - but because, for journalists routinely criticised for treating politics as a soap opera, reshuffle day is the one occasion when it really does become a personality-driven drama. It’s the day when reporters discover whether they’ve been lunching the right people. As Patrick Wintour reports in his guide in the Guardian today, it’s a day of maximum prime ministerial patronage - because the ability to sack someone in his team is the ultimate power that the prime minister has. And today’s reshuffle should be particularly exciting because it’s the first substantial one we’ve had since the coalition was formed in 2010. And it’s the first time in living memory that we’ve had a coalition reshuffle, or a Conservative reshuffle and a Lib Dem reshuffle running side by side. It should be a good day.
Andrew Mitchell is becoming chief whip. It is not yet known who will replace him as international development secretary. This is what David Cameron said about the appointment overnight.
Andrew has done a superb job as Britain’s development secretary. He has made British development policy transparent, focused and highly effective. His energy and passionate commitment have placed Britain at the forefront of international efforts to improve the lives of millions of the world’s poorest people. He has made a real difference. As chief whip, Andrew will ensure strong support for our radical legislative programme, by working hard to win the argument in the Commons as well as playing a big role in the No 10 team. He will be invaluable as the government embarks on the next, vital phase of its mission to restore our economy to growth and reform our public services.
And this is what Mitchell said about his move.
It has been a huge privilege to serve as part of a coalition which has radically overhauled the way aid is spent and brought a new rigour to British development policy. I am incredibly proud to be part of a government which is improving the lives of the world’s most vulnerable people and helping the poorest countries stand on their own two feet. I leave the Department for International Development with great sadness but I very much look forward to the task ahead.
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