The major moves in Gordon Brown's cabinet reshuffle
ALAN JOHNSON:The man tipped to be Brown's most likely successor has moved from health to the home office, responsible for policing, immigration and counter-terrorism. A guitar-playing former postman, Johnson (59) is portrayed as a man of the people who could help Labour reconnect with its working class roots. Orphaned at the age of 12, his elder sister brought him up in a state-owned flat in London. He worked as a supermarket shelf-stacker before becoming a trade union leader. Johnson's easy style impresses supporters, but critics say he is vague on policy.
LIAM BYRNE:A close ally of Brown, the 38-year-old will become chief secretary to the Treasury, the number two finance ministry post, replacing Yvette Cooper, the new work and pensions secretary.
Byrne’s appointment ensures that a loyalist takes control of a post involved in inter- departmental spending negotiations. He has worked as a technology entrepreneur and for bankers NM Rothschild. He lists his interests as running half marathons, learning to surf and studying English church architecture.
PETER HAIN:The former work and pensions secretary returns to government as Welsh secretary after resigning to clear his name in 2008 during a police investigation into political donations he had failed to declare. Prosecutors said there was not enough evidence to charge Hain and parliament's standards watchdog ruled there had been no intention to deceive.
However, the watchdog said Hain’s failure to declare donations worth £100,000 for his failed bid to become deputy leader of the Labour Party was “both serious and substantial” and told him to apologise to parliament.
Born in Nairobi, Kenya, and brought up in South Africa, Hain came to Britain in 1966 as a teenager after his parents were forced out of white-ruled South Africa for opposing apartheid.
BOB AINSWORTH:The armed forces minister has been promoted to replace John Hutton as defence secretary, who oversees troops serving in Afghanistan.
Ainsworth (56) entered politics in 1992 after working as a sheet metal worker and trade union official at the Jaguar car plant in Coventry, central England. He previously worked as a government whip, or parliamentary enforcer, and as an interior minister with responsibility for drugs and organised crime.
YVETTE COOPER:The former treasury minister replaces James Purnell as work and pensions secretary.
Born in Scotland, Cooper’s father was a trade union leader and her mother a maths teacher. She was educated at Oxford, Harvard and the London School of Economics before launching her political career as an adviser to Labour and Bill Clinton. Cooper (40) also wrote editorials and economic columns for the Independent newspaper and is close family friend of Brown.
Britain’s new minister for Europe, Glenys Kinnock, had only been out of a job for a day when the call came from the Prime Minister to get back into the fray.
GLENYS KINNOCK:The new minister for Europe had only been out of a job for a day, having decided to stand down at as an MEP at the European elections, when the call came from the prime minister to get back into the fray. She will take on the task of speaking for the government on Europe. – (Reuters)