The new Cabinet meets
By Ian Dunt and Alex Stevenson
Gordon Brown’s new Cabinet has met for the first time, as he enters the first day of his trial period.
The prime minister managed to placate MPs last night in a critical meeting of the Parliamentary Labour party.
He is now in safe territory, having secured a loyal Cabinet and neutralised the ‘peasants’ revolt’ of backbenchers. But having told MPs he will listen more and work on his weaknesses, he is effectively on probation.
A statement by ultra-Blairite former minister Stephen Byers after the meeting calling for him to step down failed to restart the momentum among anti-Brown MPs.
It followed disastrous election results for Labour, with the party hitting 15 per cent support and falling behind the Tories in Wales for the first time since the first world war.
Today, the Cabinet put on a show of unity.
Foreign secretary David Miliband, who settled nerves in No 10 last week when he failed to back James Purnell’s resignation, told the Today programme: “We are not going to hand over a landslide to a Tory party that doesn’t have a clue how to take this country forward.”
But Mr Purnell told the BBC: “For me it was a very personal decision, I just knew I couldn’t wake up on Friday and say something which I didn’t think was the case.
“I said what I said, I stand by it, of course I can be happy if I turn out to be proven wrong and Gordon Brown leads the Labour party to victory at the next election.
“I’ve got complete respect for people who stayed in the government who believe that’s the right thing to do.”
Mr Brown’s new Cabinet discussed constitutional renewal and how the government’s plans are being taken forward. There was also an update on the economy led by the new chief secretary to the Treasury, Liam Byrne.
Conservative leader David Cameron described the state of the government as a “slow dance of political death”.
The Cabinet will meet again on Friday in a meeting expected to take all morning to discuss what the prime minister’s spokesman described as “the government’s future plans for building a better Britain”.
