REDDITCH MP SMITH NEW HOME SEC

28-06-2007

New Prime Minister Gordon Brown has stunned MP's by appointing the Redditch MP Jacqui Smith asBritain's first female Home Secretary in his new cabinet announced this morning.

Smith, 44, first became an MP a decade ago when Labour swept into power under Tony Blair and her star has been in the ascendant ever since.

In 1999 she was given a junior role in the Department of Education, and two years later she became Minister of State for Health with responsibility for Social Services. By 2003 she had moved to the DTI overseeing Industry and the Regions, and she was also Deputy Womens' Minister.

Since then, she's been Minister for Schools and since 2006 Chief Whip - a position of ultimate trust for an MP always regarded as a consummate Blairite loyalist.

The only time she's been known to blot her copybook was when she campaigned against the loss of the A&E department at her local hospital, the Alex in Redditch. Like several of her colleagues, the realities of New Labour's health policies forced her into opposing the official line.

Otherwise, though, it's been a full house of pro-government policies - she voted in favour of the Iraq war, student top-up fees and renewing Trident. Promotion was expected, but not quite so far and so quickly.

Other reshuffle highlights:

new Chancellor -Alastair Darling; Foreign Secretary - David Millband; Health - Alan Johnson; Schools and Children - Ed Balls; Justice - Jack Straw; Culture - James Purnell; Transport - Ruth Kelly; Evironment - Hillary Benn.

Key losers - ex Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt; ex Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett; ex Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell. And, of course, ex Prime Minister Tony Blair.