London – Prime Minister Tony Blair unveiled his Cabinet on Friday, changing leadership in defense and health but keeping mostly familiar faces as he put his Labor government back in business after a third-term victory dampened by a reduced majority in Parliament caused by the anti-war vote.
As expected, Blair kept his powerful treasury chief, Gordon Brown, by his side as chancellor of the exchequer.
Brown’s strong stewardship of the economy played a key role in securing the government’s re-election, and he is widely viewed as Blair’s likely successor should the prime minister not serve the full term.
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, a steadfast ally who has repeatedly defended the government’s decision to back the U.S.- led offensive in Iraq, also kept his job.
Blair’s friend and ally David Blunkett, a blind man who was forced to quit as home secretary last year after he was embroiled in a messy affair with a married American publisher, was brought back as work and pensions secretary – a key role as the government tries to cope with Britain’s looming pensions crisis.
John Reid, Blair’s gritty, tough-talking health minister, was moved to defense, replacing Geoff Hoon, who becomes the government’s leader in the House of Commons. No policy changes were expected at defense.
The Cabinet shuffle followed Labor’s re-election. The triumph was bittersweet because the party’s House of Commons majority over the combined opposition was slashed from 161 to 66 seats by a volatile electorate disillusioned with politicians and angry over the Iraq war.
In a sign of the strength of the anti-war sentiment, one of Blair’s harshest critics was re-elected to Parliament.
“Mr. Blair, this is for Iraq,” said anti-war activist George Galloway, who was expelled from Labor after urging British soldiers not to fight in Iraq. “All the people you killed, all the lies you told, have come back to haunt you. And the best thing the Labor Party could do is sack you.”
Galloway campaigned to end the economic sanctions imposed on Iraq after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait and once said on Arab television that Arab nations should “stand by the Iraqi people.” Almost half of the voters in his district are Muslim.
Blair acknowledged voters had given him a bloody nose.
“I have listened, and I have learned,” said Blair, who decided to skip a trip to Moscow this week that was to mark the 60th anniversary of the Allied victory over the Nazis.
“And I think I have a very clear idea of what the British people now expect from this government for a third term.”
Conservative chief Michael Howard, who led his once-mighty party to a third successive defeat, announced his imminent resignation, which could come in the next six months as party leaders decide on a successor.
“I have said that if people don’t deliver, they go. And for me, delivering meant winning the election. I didn’t do that,” Howard told supporters.
Howard did not announce a date for his resignation but said it would be “sooner rather than later.”
