Brown's New Cabinet

Gordon Brown's first cabinet signals (hopefully) that we're at the end of Labour's period of running around and re-announcing everything three times over. Brown realises (putting Ed Miliband at the Cabinet Office, putting Professor Sir Ara Darzi as a junior minister in Health) that it needs to be about delivery.

Of course, I disagree about the solutions being pushed through. Gordon Brown is the man behind the PFI boondoggle, and he forced through the part-privatisation of the London Underground and air traffic control.

Just this morning with Andrew Marr, he squashed any idea of a change in policy on Guantanamo (after Harman's comments during the deputy leadership election campaign).

And it's unclear how much delivery you can deliver in a year leading up to a general election. But it's a welcome change. And it's a change, post-Blair, that shouldn't be underestimated.

John Rentoul, in the Indie on Sunday, points out:

The car bombs vindicate John Reid's decision to split the Home Office, so Jacqui Smith can concentrate on terrorism while leaving the crisis of prison overcrowding to Jack Straw, Secretary of State for Justice.

The big disappointment of the new Government is Hilary Benn's move to Environment. The grey man of the Labour deputy leadership contest has been given the green department, which has not been transformed into a super-ministry. Responsibility for energy policy, which is critical to climate change, remains with what used to be the DTI. Of course, David Miliband can do the negotiations that are critical at the global level, but the Government risks losing the edge in mobilising domestic opinion, once again, to David Cameron.