Reshuffle as-it-happened
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By Ian Dunt
09:50 – Everything is on the go, and leaking out regularly. We’re currently expecting – rather shockingly – for Alan Johnson to go to the Home Office, Alistair darling to remain in the Treasury and Peter Mandelson to remain business secretary. David Miliband will almost certainly remain at the Foreign Office, especially now he has confirmed his loyalty. Jack Straw stays as justice secretary.
09:54 – David Miliband has made a new statement of loyalty. “This is a difficult time for anyone involved in politics. I’m very sad James Purnell has left the government.”
10:03 – The important part is what comes next, as we find out who is replacing people like Johnson, Hazel Blears and James Purnell. The next hour or so should tell us if he can make it past this. All the time, local election results are coming in. You can keep track of them live on politics.co.uk’s results page.
10:09 – Sir Alan Sugar has been offered a position called enterprise tsar. We knew something was up when he popped into Downing Street yesterday. When an FT journalist asked if he was joining the Cabinet he said: “None of your business” which ignores the fact that really, that is the business of political journalists. Does anyone else’s heart sink anytime a new job is created with the word ‘tsar’ at the end?
10:16 – Jim Murphy, Scotland secretary, is staying put.
10:23 – John Hutton is standing down as defence secretary, we hear. That’s unexpected. He was on the airwaves making clear his support for Brown today, although obviously it could have nothing to do with a challenge to the PM.
10:28 – The other interesting thing is that Hutton is another classic Blairite – allowing us to see a pattern (Blears, Purnell etc). Hutton has made his support fore the PM clear again, but with a war in Afghanistan, and all the obvious conclusions to be drawn from any resignation at this stage, Hutton’s decision can’t really be taken at face value. The face value, for the record, is “family reasons”. Always a goody. Still, he’s not joining Purnell’s call for a change of leadership. There’s something almost scientifically fascinating about how supine the Cabinet is.
10:41 – Hutton is also standing down as an MP at the next general election apparently.
10:51 – Odd little website just popped on the radar for those who like their coverage with no bias/comment whatsoever. It’s called ‘is Gordon Brown still prime minister’ and right now has just one word on it – yes. Bizarre. http://isgordonbrownstillprimeminister.com/.
10:54 – The rumours around Northern Ireland secretary Shaun Woodward are gathering pace. We’re expecting a move for him. He’s one of Brown’s most trusted lieutenants now – you could see him whispering in Brown’s ear throughout this week’s PMQs. He had planned to leave last year, but the resurgence of problems in Northern Ireland forced him to stay.
10:57 – The Labour leader on Somerset County Council just lost his seat to the Conservatives.
10:59 – Fascinating blog from former deputy leader John Prescott on Labour Home: “Whilst I knew we were short of money I didn’t realise we also lacked the will to fight these elections. The people responsible for this non-campaign – and make no mistake there was no campaign – were Harriet Harman, Caroline Flint, Douglas Alexander and yes, our former Communities Secretary Hazel Blears. I kept asking the party what was the strategy, what was our message, what was the campaign? I became so concerned I actually wrote to Harriet. Her reply was less than satisfactory. It seems the people responsible for our campaign were resigned to defeat and were prepared to use the excuse that we had no money.”
11:07 – It’s confirmed: David Miliband will be staying at the Foreign Office.
11:24 – There are rumours Yvette Cooper is to take over from Purnell at the Department of Work and Pensions, with John Denham replacing Hazel Blears at the department of Communities and Local Government. This is totally unconfirmed.
11:33 – Well that was rubbish. Turns out John Denham is the new health secretary – not yet confirmed, but double sourced.
11:35 – Local election results are confirming our expectations by the way. The Tories just made four gains in Barrow (Dalton North, Dalton South, Roosecote and Walney South) – all of them from Labour. Cumbria is understood to be going heavily to the Tories.
11:37 – Yvette Cooper just did her bit praising Brown as the right person to take us forward. Things are slowly looking safer for the PM.
11:39 – Nothing official just yet, but there are strong rumours that responsibility for science research funding in the UK will be moved into the Dept for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform. It seems likely that Denham’s Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills will be disbanded. Although everything is still a mixture of rumour and guesswork right now.
11:45 – Hutton’s interview with the BBC: “It’s absolutely right Gordon should have a Cabinet that will be with him. I can’t be part of that team because of my decision to stand down at the next election. It’s the responsibility of all Labour MPs to show support for our leader at this time.” I’m not being funny, but at moments it almost looked like he was about to cry. But then he does have strange eyes, perhaps I just got confused.
11:57 – politics.co.uk just bumped into Ken Livingstone around parliament. He’s going all guns blazing to save the PM, and had this to say: “For all my disagreements with Gordon Brown throughout the years he’s come out with exactly the right policies, which have broadly been taken up by President Obama and Europe.”
12:02 – Nope. I was right the first time. John Denham is in fact going to become the new communities secretary. You should always stick with the first rumour, but instead I fell for the fickle reassurance of double-sourced nonsense.
12:09 – More news on Denham’s old department. Whatever else happens, it almost certainly won’t be merged with Children, Schools and Families.
12:17 – News just in: Scotland Yard are saying it’s “highly unlikely” anyone will face charges over the expenses scandal.
12:24 – The latest rumour is that Yvette Cooper will take over from James Purnell as work and pensions secretary.
12:40 – The main body of local election results should be coming in over the next couple of hours.
12:44 – Looks like Ed Balls is staying in the schools department. We’d presumed so, once we realised Darling had managed to stay in the Treasury, but that now appears the most likely option. He will not be a happy chappy.
12:47 – Two Conservative gains in Derbyshire – one from Labour, one from Lib Dems. I mention this because Derbyshire is really the one to watch. If Labour loses here, it’s all downhill.
12:51 – BNP just took a seat off Labour in Burnley West. We knew there would at least be some BNP gain -and it’s only the European elections which really matter in this respect, but it always hurts. On the plus side, I’m still getting hate mail from the BNP for my comment piece from a couple of days ago – There’s nothing less British than the BNP – so some things are still right in the world.
13:02 – SNP Westminster leader Angus Robertson gives his (predictable but true) verdict on the reshuffle so far: “This panic reshuffle has been dictated by the resignation of senior ministers and the refusal of others to go. Gordon Brown may still just be in office – but he is not in power. The fact that the prime minister has been forced into rushing the reshuffle before the election results are even declared exposes the depth of his desperation.”
13:06 – There is now not a single Labour councillor in Surrey. They’ve all gone.
13:14 – Hilary Benn talks to politics.co.uk: “I disagree with James [Purnell – I mean, seriously, who else?]. These are difficult times. We’ve had better weeks, let’s be honest.”
13:32 – Here’s the full interview with Hilary Benn:
13:34 – And with Liam Fox, shadow defence secretary:
13:35 – And Sarah Teather, Lib Dem business spokesperson:
13:37 – The Tories just took Somerset and Devon from the Lib Dems, indicating the third party could end up with a net loss by the end of the day. Bad news for Clegg.
13:41 – And before I forget, here’s the Ken Livingstone interview:
13:43 – And Denis MacShane, former Europe minister:
13:49 – Here’s the full list of confirmed positions, in case you’re losing track:
Business: Peter Mandelson
Chancellor: Alistair Darling
Communities: John Denham
Foreign Secretary: David Miliband
Home Secretary: Alan Johnson
Justice Secretary: Jack Straw
Schools: Ed Balls
Work & Pensions: Yvette Cooper
13:52 – There are rumours doing the rounds that it’ll be Caroline Flint who becomes health secretary. If so, it’s a reward for not rebelling, like her friend Hazel Blears, and specifically not resigning last night, as I and pretty much everyone else in Westminster expected her to.
14:00 – A little ray of sunlight for the government. The first two ward results in Hertfordshire County Council show Labour holding both seats, with Sharon Taylor and John Lloyd fighting off attacks from Tories Leslie Clarke and Christine Hurst.
14:03 – But the Tories are clearly pulling ahead in Lancashire. So far there are eight Conservative gains in – 7 from Labour and one from the Lib Dems.
14:12 – Fascinating interview with Alan Johnson on the Beeb: “Right now there’s no way I would ever be PM”. Well certainly not after becoming home secretary mate. It’s the graveyard of political careers. I think it’s the automaton thing. Watching someone parrot horrible right-wing nonsense communicated directly into their brain from Downing Street never brings up a warm feeling in the stomach of the public. Johnson really looks bad. Pale and red-eyed, it appears he hasn’t slept in days (join the club) and is carrying the weight of the Labour party on his shoulders. Or maybe that’s just how humans look when they realise they’re about to take over the Home Office.
14:15 – Classic blog from the Spectator’s Alex Massie: “Could anything more confirm this government’s hapless, pointless, useless, desperate, incompetence than the appointment of Alan Sugar as ‘enterprise czar’ (whatever the hell that is)?”
14:18 – The latest rumours: armed forces minister Bob Ainsworth looks like he’s going to be promoted to defence secretary. This is just looking more pathetic by the minute.
14:19 – Yesterday I wrote that Brown would need a miracle. But Labour needs a miracle too. So far Brown has kept all the big players, and juggled some of the second tier ministers. That’s not the stuff of miracles. Clearly, this is an entirely defensive maneuver, designed to save himself in the short term. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more impotent reshuffle.
14:31 – Ainsworth just got confirmed by the way. Great stuff from Paul Waugh at the Evening Standard, who has been handed a secret Labour party memo telling Cabinet members exactly what to say about the events of the last two days, including Purnell’s resignation. It bears more than a little resemblance to what Mandelson and Co have been arguing all morning. You’ve got to love the section sketching out personal answers for all possible questions, ie: “James Purnell’s Resignation? – I am obviously disappointed about James’s resignation. The prime minister and the rest of the Cabinet are absolutely focused on the big challenges of cleaning up our politics and getting Britain back to work quicker“. Read the whole memo at Waugh’s blog.
14:33 – Ed Miliband will remain energy and climate change secretary, it has been confirmed.
14:39 – Staffordshire County Council just went to the Tories.
14:43 – The Tory share of the vote is actually a little disappointing (37 per cent) for them. But the Tory targets are coming through. That’s places like Devon, Somerset, Staffordshire and Lancashire. The BBC just did a projection of the national vote based on today’s results. Labour are on 23 per cent, down from 24 last year. That’s a disastrous performance (the worst ever as far as I know), but it’s above the 20 per cent watermark you’d expect to seal Brown’s fate. The Conservatives have actually suffered a bigger fall, dropping from 44 per cent last year to 38 per cent. The Lib Dems would pick up 28 per cent. The thing is, Cameron has been taking seats off them, suggesting they might end up having to retreat into their traditional territories.
15:02 – The last of the big positions are coming into view, with rumours that Andy Burnham is going to become health secretary. We was media secretary.
15:10 – It looks like Douglas Alexander will stay as international development secretary.
15:12 – Gordon Brown is going to give a news conference at 16:00. We’ll be covering that live, obviously. The only positions left to fill are chief secretary of the Treasury and culture, media and sport secretary. There’s also the Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills, of course, but the current thinking is still that it will cease to exist.
15:17 – And Ben Bradshaw looks as if he’s headed for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport.
15:22 – The BBC are reporting that Peter Hain will be returning as Wales secretary. He left the Cabinet after the controversy over a £103,000 for his failed deputy leader bid, but was cleared of wrongdoing by the parliamentary standards authority.
15:26 – The Lib Dems just released a statement saying they expect to be the second party in local government – although they’ll have to wait until the Local Government Association (LGA) makes its formal assessment next week. Cllr Richard Kemp, leader of the LGA Lib Dem Group, said: “Against Labour we have taken our fair share of the seats that they have lost and the overall control taken in Bristol. We are disappointed to lose control of Somerset and Devon especially as our councillors there had worked so hard but our overall showing against the Tories has been strong in what will be their best ever year in local government elections.”
15:33 – Geoff Hoon has resigned. No further information on that just yet. We might have to wait until Brown’s press conference, which will be sometime after 16:00. Although they haven’t even settled on a location yet.
15:38 – The Conservatives have taken Derbyshire. This is hugely important. It’s a massive shift, and a highly impressive showing from the Tories. They’re digging into the Labour heartlands. And the party is only one seat from taking Lancashire.
15:42 – Geoff Hoon is to take a ‘senior advisory role on EU and NATO policy’, apparently. Suddenly, we’re being told Shawn Woodward will remain Northern Ireland secretary. That’s unexpected. We were expecting him to get a promotion, but then the prime minister’s hands are quite evidently tied behind his back, as Ed Balls will tell you.
15:44 – Liam Byrne is being made chief secretary to the Treasury. That would have been the end of it, but now that Geoff Hoon is gone we need a transport secretary.
15:46 – The Conservatives just took Lancashire. They’re below the level of support you’d want to guarantee a Tory general election victory, but given the damage from the expenses scandal, they’ve really had a good day today. In the last few second we were just told Margaret Beckett will no longer be housing minister.
16:02 – Ian Gibsen is resigning with immediate effect – which would trigger a by-election.
16:04 – This looks like an act of outright sabotage. Gibsen was barred from standing again by the party’s ‘star chamber’ over his expenses claims, a decision he was livid about. Brown needs a by-election like a hole in the head. It’s like a soap opera. As soon as one storyline is resolved, another one starts up.
16:07 – Here’s our audio interview with Tessa Jowell:
16:11 – Gibsen just made a statement describing his position as an MP between now and the general election as “untenable”. He went on: “I’ve decided to tender my resignation as an MP with immediate effect and I expect it to be accepted.”
16:13 – Now there’s a rumour going round that Tony McNulty has left the government. Everything’s getting a little crazy again as the day wears on. I’ve got a feeling Brown’s conference is being put back as we speak.
16:19 – Some info on Norwich North, the seat Gibsen just departed. The Conservative candidate is Chloe Smith. She’s about to have a busy few weeks trying to bring down a majority of nearly 7,000. She’s a pretty good example of the kind of Conservative Cameron wants in the party – vaguely progressive, in that meaningless Conservative sort of way, young, socially liberal. It’ll be an interesting contest. It’s target seat number 163 for Tory HQ.
16:33 – The latest from George Osborne, shadow chancellor: “We have a chancellor who does not command the confidence of his prime minister and a prime minister too weak to choose the chancellor he wants.”
16:44 – That McNulty rumour was true. He’s resigned. By this stage in proceedings your guess is as good as mine. If he wanted to make a big anti-Brown point he would have surely left before the reshuffle, with Blears or Purnell, to make a bigger statement. By this stage you have assume he resigned because he was about to get demoted. The incentive to sit around and allow yourself to be demoted is perilously small by this stage. You might as well just resign and appear more interesting.
16:47 – Brown has emerged. He actually looks fairly healthy. He starts by discussing how difficult the economic crisis would make things in Britain. “I am here to accept my responsibility.” Interesting phrase. He tries to sketch out a policy agenda (welfare reform etc) which simply doesn’t exist.
16:49 – He described the three councils which will report to the government – economic, home affairs and constitutional renewal. More defence of his ‘do something’ agenda on the economy. Action on housing, green issues etc. There’ll be new legislation for a new regulator for MPs. All MPs expenses will be scrutinised by a new independent audit panel. This is all old announcements. “We want to put power in the hands of our citizens,” etc etc. More on reforming public services. “If I didn’t think I was the right person leading the right team then I would not be standing here.”
16:52 – No-one would forgive a Labour government which “walked away from our duties”. He goes on: “I know where I want to take this country and I know what we as a nation have it in ourselves to achieve.” He didn’t come into politics to stand in the limelight. “Today these issues, these challenges – the economy and ethics – demand strength of character.”
16:53 – “It was a tough night,” he continues. He opens to questions. This is fascinating. “I won’t walk away from my duty to the country. I’m not complacent. I’ve never been arrogant. I’m not doubting we suffered a very big defeat.” Genuinely different stuff from the prime minister. A mixture of strength and humility. It’s not just the words, it’s his tone. He tells Nick Robinson from the BBC: “Nick, I will always allow you two questions now because you take them anyway.”
16:56 – The first attempts to tear up his new Cabinet come from Adam Boulton from Sky News. Can he really say he’s strengthened the government team? There’s seven women attending Cabinet, Brown says, with a speed which suggests he’s vulnerable to the gender attack.
16:58 – By the way, it turns out Bob Ainsworth will become defence secretary. If you’ve been with us all day, you’ll understand the confusion. “Focus, determination, energy” – that’s how Brown describes the new Cabinet. Did he want to sack his chancellor? “No, no, no,” Brown responds. He then praises him. In a vaguely laughable way he says he was asked this on Wednesday and praised him then. True, of course, but hugely misleading at the same time.
17:00 – John Hutton told Brown some time ago he didn’t want to stand in the next election, he says. As he speaks, I’m getting the latest bookies odds in. William Hill make the Tories 2/5 favourites to win the next general election with a clear overall majority. Paddy Power are so sure Brown’s finished they’re paying out on him leaving the post by August.
17:02 – Getting angrier now. He just prodded his finger into the lectern about 15 times and denied Jon Snow a further question with a ‘speak to the hand’ gesture.
17:04 – “When I look at this expenses crisis I remember my father and what he told me: ‘always be honest’.” That was effective. On me anyway, but I’m notoriously sentimental. He assures us of his determination to change the expenses system, as you might expect.
17:06 – “I understand in a way why people are worried,” he says in relation to rebellious MPs, which sounds new and different, but really it’s more rhetoric on how the financial crisis has changed everything.
17:07 – We’re learning Caroline Flint is resigning from the government. Very strange noises from Brown on this. Glynis Kinnock is taking over as minister for Europe. Yes. That’s Neil Kinnock’s wife.
17:13 – Most bloggers’ first response was to presume she quit as the press conference was being delivered, but that doesn’t seem true, not based on how Brown dealt with it. But she definitely didn’t get rewarded for backing him yesterday, because whatever he offered her – if anything – obviously wasn’t enough.
17:14 – Brown faces some questions on Kinnock, who will need to be put in the House of Lords. And now criticism of his appointment of Alan Sugar as enterprise tsar. Brown backs it up through a defence of his previous appointments of people from industry.
17:18 – Can he win the next general election? “Of course,” he answers. “Do you really want a party that would cut public spending? No other country [visibly angry again] has done that.”
17:22 – politics.co.uk asks its question. Has today been a good day for his authority? Brown stresses we’re reducing to policy. “People want to know there will be places for people at college, that we’ll continue with our apprentices,” he says. He doesn’t seem happy with us.
17:26 – The press conference is over. It’s very difficult to understand what has happened here. He clearly knew Flint was off, but how could Downing Street allow for the news of her resignation to come out literally as he spoke? Very strange.
17:27 – Here’s the full list of the Cabinet. The body count for today is six. Caroline Flint, Tony McNulty, Margaret Beckett, Geoff Hoon, John Hutton and Ian Gibsen. In the last few moments Lord Adonis became transport secretary.
17:33 – This from Flint: “Gordon Brown treated me like female window dressing.” This is insane.
17:35 – Flint’s attack shouldn’t be understated. The attack on the way he treats women is unprecedented and very, very specific. It plays on suspicions raised by the Damian McBride affair, and the macho clique Brown surrounds himself with. It plays on his lack of popularity among women voters. It stokes the fires of the WAG (women against Gordon) interpretation of Brown’s troubles. And coming just hours after she supported him on television last night, it shows how out of control he is. A somehow fitting end to very long, and very important, day in Westminster.
