28June
In the Soup Dragon's Kitchen Cabinet
Prime Minister and Minister for the Civil Service – Soup Dragon
Finance – Alistair Darling
Foreign – David Miliband
Justice – John Straw
Lord Privy Seal – Froglet
Funk – Jacqui Smith
Health – Alan Johnson
Children, Schools, Families [1] – Ed Balls
War, Scotland – Des Browne
Innovation, Universities, Skills [2] – Hilary Benn
Employment and Wales – Peter Hain
Business, Enterprise, Regulatory Reform [3] – John Hutton
Northern Ireland, Wales – Turncoat Woodward
International Development – Douglas Alexander
Transport – R. Kelly
Local government – An Insubstantial Careerist
Culture – James Purnell
Chief whip – Geoff Hoon
Ducky of Lancaster – Ed Miliband
Treasury 2 – Andy Burnham
Lords – Jay Ashton
[1] Formerly Education
[2] New department, replacing the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister
[3] Formerly Productivity, formerly Trade and Industry
The Foreign office now includes the European office.
The headline surprise is the arrival of Jacqui Smith at the new Ministry of Funk. She can't be worse than John Reid ... can she? Mr. Benn might well have expected something better than Higher Education. We note that Boris Johnson is now shadowing a cabinet minister, which might be the first occasion that the prime minister has given a promotion to an opposition politician. No cabinet place for Jon Cruddas, the single most popular candidate in the recent leadership election. R. Kelly and an Insubstantial Careerist continue to clog up the table, but we note the return of John Hutton, a man whose looked set to enter cabinet around 2003, but resigned over the illegal Iraq war. Andy Burnham was the minister responsible for introducing the identity register. No place for Miss Eagle, nor for the widely-tipped but completely ineffectual Mrs. Baird.
