Blair courts controversy with Cabinet reshuffle

Prime Minister Tony Blair is facing more criticism over his decisions after finalising the Cabinet reshuffle.

Mr Blair has been heavily criticised over the appointment of Lord Grayson as a junior defence minister.

Proving to be a hugely controversial choice, Lord Grayson's pharmaceutical company was granted a multi-million pound government contract to supply smallpox vaccines.

He is reported to have provided the Labour party with a large amount of funding.

Conservative shadow defence minister Gerald Howarth said: “It appears Lord Grayson’s reward for giving £500,00 to the Labour party is a job in the Ministry of Defence. It is clear Mr Blair’s style of government has not changed. New Labour rewards old donors.”

Mr Blair has also attracted criticism over the appointment of his Downing Street education advisor Andrew Adonis to a junior minister post in the Department of Education and Skills. He was also given a peerage. Mr Adonis, whose appointment was reported to be opposed by Education Secretary Ruth Kelly, is not a popular choice and is seen as likely to be equally as controversial as Lord Grayson as he is seen as being one of the orchestrators of the deeply unpopular policy of university top-up fees.

In other appointments, former Immigration Minister Beverly Hughes returns to the Cabinet as Minister for Children. She was forced to resign her post last year, following a row over Eastern European visas.

Lord Hunt, who resigned from his Cabinet post over the Iraq War, returns as a junior minister in the Department of Work and Pensions.

Margaret Hodge has been named as Minister for Work, while Kim Howells was given the post of Minister for the Middle East. Yvette Cooper, the wife of Chancellor Gordon Brown’s former adviser Ed Balls, became Minister for Housing and Planning, although her husband – who became an MP for the first time in last week’s election – did not secure a ministerial appointment.

Shaun Woodward, the ex-Conservative MP who defected to Labour before the 2001 General Election, also received a ministerial post in the Northern Ireland office.

However, a number of ministers lost their posts in the reshuffle, including local government minister Nick Raynsford and John Spellar who lost his position in the Northern Ireland office.

(KMcA/SP)