A quick update from that nailbiting ritual, the post-election reshuffle. This is the one where all newspapers who have speculated in advance about who will get binned/promoted after the election get proved gloriously wrong when Tony Blair does the opposite. Mind you this is often because TB had to change his mind halfway through the reshuffle when someone dug in their heels and refused to be sacked (or to allow their protege to be sacked).
First take on this one: difficult decisions about who ought to be put out to grass have been ducked again (i.e. John Prescott is still in office, Ian McCartney is still in the cabinet though no longer party chairman). Margaret Beckett and Geoff Hoon (both of whom are perenially tipped to be dumped every reshuffle and perenially aren't) are still there although Hoon has moved to a less high profile job as leader of the commons (usually seen as a last job before retirement).
Lots of younger MPs are anxious for Beckett to be retired so that they can get a foot on the ladder but as someone once magnficently put it to me, 'they can bugger off and come back when they're half as good as her.'
Moving up: Patricia Hewitt (Department of Health, a big promotion and reward for a good campaign), David Miliband (gets into Cabinet as head of a new department covering everything from council tax to community issues, which seems to translate as being nice to your neighbours), David Blunkett (back in Cabinet less than six months after having to leave it following that unfortunate incident with his lover's nanny's visa); John Hutton (Health Minister who now becomes Chancellor of Duchy of Lancaster, ridiculous title for job involving deregulation and civil service reform).
Fed up: John Reid (gone sideways to Ministry of Defence), Peter Hain (Northern Ireland secretary, the job of nightmares), Tessa Jowell (missed out on promotion and stays at Dept of Culture, Media and Sport).
What all of the MPs want to know of course is whether it is Brown or Blair who has 'won' the reshuffle - who got more of 'their people' in? Immediate analysis from your bleary-eyed political editor (now feeling better about lack of sleep after talking to a Labour party staffer who's been up for 26 hours on the trot): it looks quite defiantly Blairite to me, although the Chancellor's great mate Douglas Alexander is now Minister for Europe which has been made into a cabinet job. And Jack Straw didn't get sacked.
Junior Ministers won't be unveiled until Monday (although do invest in a copy of the Observer this weekend and we'll do our best to bring you tomorrow's news today), so that might even things out a bit. But it is fascinating to see how oddly unrewarding it can be to be a loyal Blairite (like Jowell and Reid) nonetheless.
p.s. To the nice reader who wanted to know why I thought the fall of Hornsey and Wood Green was 'jaw dropping' when they've got lots of Lib Dem councillors already - only because the Lib Dems themselves are rather surprised they got it. Plus, in the uncannily similar seat of Islington South and Finsbury - with an equally large quotient of middle class Labour loyalists annoyed about the war, and a strong Lib Dem candidate, and if anything a weaker Labour candidate defending it, and a really strong Lib Dem presence on the council too - Labour held on. So there seems to have been an 'x factor' in HWG. But since I suspect some of you reading this blog live there, please feel free to divulge how/why you voted....
The blog editor adds: Sorry Gaby. This should've gone live earlier. Technical gremlin now exterminated.
