Brown completes Cabinet reshuffle

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has completed his Cabinet reshuffle and is now aiming to restore people's trust in politics.

He has drawn up plans for an overhaul of the way that Government operates and has appointed ministers and advisers from outside the Labour Party and beyond the world of politics.

Falklands hero and former head of the Royal Navy, Admiral Sir Alan West, was made security minister in the Home Office while ex-Metropolitan Police Commissioner Lord Stevens of Kirkwhelpington was appointed adviser on international security issues.

The importance of the appointments of Lord Stevens and Admiral West was underlined by the discovery of a massive car bomb outside a nightclub in London's West End in the early hours.

The bomb - which was disarmed without going off - was discussed at an unusual Friday meeting of Cabinet this morning, called by Mr Brown to discuss his plans for constitutional reform.

Additionally, former CBI director-general Sir Digby Jones was appointed minister for trade and investment in the new Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform.

Meanwhile, the post of junior international development minister went to former Treasury aide Shriti Vadera, and leading surgeon Sir Ara Darzi became a health minister.

The PM also recruited two Liberal Democrat peers in advisory roles - Baroness Neuberger working with him on voluntary sector issues and leading lawyer Lord Lester of Herne Hill advising Justice Secretary Jack Straw on constitutional reform.

Their appointments follow the naming of Sir Mark Malloch Brown, former deputy to United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, to a ministerial post in the Foreign Office.

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