UK election latest: Prime Minister Keir Starmer makes cabinet appointments - but 'shock' as one senior figure snubbed (2024)

Some of Sir Keir Starmer's appointments have come as a surprise this evening - not least Timpson's chief executive James Timpson becoming minister for prisons parole and probation.

The business leader is also chair of the Prison Reform Trust and has a history of employing ex-convicts within his company.

The prime minister also appointed Sir Patrick Vallance - a household name during the COVID pandemic - as minister for science, and human rights lawyer Richard Hermer KC as attorney general.

In effect, he appears to be choosing experts in their fields - but how could they be appointed without being elected as MPs?

Essentially, the prime minister has the power to appoint anyone as a minister if they first make them a peer in the House of Lords.

A similar tactic was used by Rishi Sunak to bring back former prime minister David Cameron to fill the role of foreign secretary.

Sir Keir Starmer's declaration a few days ago that he would clock off at 6pm on Fridays to spend time with his family was derided by Conservatives.

But Labour peer and former home secretary Lord Blunkett - someone who himself has experience in government - tells Sky News that Gordon Brown used to work 18-hour days, seven days a week, and it "didn't work".

'Let go of the reins'

He says this caused a "massive log jam in decision-making", and that Sir Keir could quickly face problems with "getting momentum and energy back into government".

Lord Blunkett says it's time for Sir Keir to "let go of the reins a bit", appoint a cabinet and "let them get on with it".

He argues that without this decentralisation, the government could "ground to a standstill".

The Labour leader could also face difficulties with the number of new MPs he has, Lord Blunkett says.

It will be a "substantial challenge" and they must feel "they've got a part to play", he says.

If you want to find out who your MP is now, you can search for your constituency in our article below.

Only one constituency - Inverness, Skye and West Ross - is yet to declare.

Number 10 has released pictures of Sir Keir Starmer with his newly appointed cabinet.

Boris Johnson has described Labour's landslide victory as an "atomic bomb that has detonated over the British political landscape".

In a piece for the Daily Mail, the former prime minister said "our worst fears have been realised" and "matters have developed".

He said the Tories had allowed Sir Keir Starmer - "a glottaly challenged north London lawyer" to lead Labour to one of their biggest victories ever and "too many good former colleagues have lost their seats in a cull that has been in many ways unjust".

"It has been miserable to watch, and it has taken me some time to rouse myself from the sofa and get to the keyboard to compose my thoughts," he said.

Mr Johnson said his prayers were now with the 121 "Tory survivors" who were the "bedraggled remnants of the explosion" and whose role was not to "hold this Starmergeddon majority to account".

On Nigel Farage, he said the "cheroot-puffing Pied Piper of Clacton" had "played a significant part" in the "destruction of the Tory government".

He went on to say "Labour's majority is built on sand" and if the past five years proved anything it was that "the electorate can flip over a seemingly impregnable position, as a child demolishes a fortress of Lego".

Rachel Reeves has today become the first woman to hold the role of chancellor of the exchequer.

The MP for Leeds West and Pudsey has a huge amount of work to get on with in No 11 as she will be tasked with bringing stability back to the economy.

There will no doubt be plenty of change in the Treasury department, not least in the toilets, Times reporter Rachel Sylvester told Sky News.

She said: "The Treasury are desperately going around looking at whether they need to redo the loo in the chancellor's office to remove that urinal because we've never had a woman in that job before!"

News outlets around the world have been reacting to the news that the Labour Party have won a landslide victory in the UK general election.

Sir Keir Starmer's big win is on the front page of newspapers and dominating the websites of outlets in the US, Brazil, Spain, Canada, Italy, Ireland, and New Zealand, among others.

The New York Times' website ran with the news of a Labour landslide, while Spanish dailyEl Pais spoke of a "historic victory of Labour".

New Zealand's second-largest newspaper The Press had a large picture of Sir Keir on the front cover.

Brazil's leading daily newspaper O Globo showed reaction to Thursday's exit poll with the caption: "Labour returns to power in the United Kingdom after 14 years."

Le Monde's homepage features both the UK election and the French, with the second round of parliamentary election voting happening this weekend across France.

Elsewhere, German broadcaster DW's website led with the UK's general election throughout Friday.

We've got more from Nigel Farage now as Reform wins its fifth seat.

James McMurdock won a close race against Labour's Jack Ferguson in Basildon South and East Thurrock, it was announced a short while ago.

"Our candidate James McMurdock was a paper candidate, drafted in at the last minute, former city boy, and he was absolutely neck and neck with Labour," Mr Farage said in a video posted on X.

"So I rang him up and said 'Look, give me the name of your agent, so I can find out what's happening because they were on the third recount' - he said 'I haven't got an agent. I'm my own agent.'

"I said, 'well, who's in the hall watching the vote count? And he said 'my mum and dad' - and he's won. He's an MP - go on my son!"

Michelle O'Neill has revealed she spoke with Sir Keir Starmer this evening and acknowledged his party's "significant victory".

The Northern Irish first minister said she wanted to "reset British-Irish relations" and called for "fair funding" to be provided for health, education and public services.

"The cuts that our people and public services have endured under a Tory government for over a decade must end now," she said.

Ms O'Neill also called on Sir Keir to follow through on his commitment to bin the Legacy Act, which ends historical inquests and transfers Troubles-era cases to a new body.

"I will continue to press the British government on the things that matter most to people, delivering for public services and all our communities as we engage in the days ahead," she said.

Number 10 has confirmed on X that Keir Starmer has spoken to the first ministers of Scotland and Wales.

"We are resetting our relationship, working together to unite our country," the post read.

New Health Secretary Wes Streeting is speaking to reporters now and says he plans to hit the ground running.

He says he has already spoken on the phone to the BMA's Junior Doctors Committee and that talks will start next week to attempt to end their industrial action.

Junior doctors in England have been holding strikes as they demand a roadmap to restore pay lost over the last 15 years.

"We promised during the campaign that we would begin negotiations as a matter of urgency, and that is what we are doing," he says.

Junior doctors have shown a "willingness to negotiate and compromise", Mr Streeting says, adding he is "sure we can find a way through".

He continues: "The policy of this department is that the NHS is broken. That is the experience of patients who are not receiving the care they deserve and of the staff working in the NHS who can see that despite giving their best, this is not good enough."

Asked what his first priority is as health secretary, Mr Streeting says he wants to cut waiting lists.

'I lost trust over Gaza'

He's also asked about how today could have looked quite different for him, as his majority was slashed from 9,000 to 528 in his Ilford North constituency.

Much of the danger had come from pro-Palestinian independents, with candidate Leanne Mohamad taking 32.2% of the vote.

Mr Streeting says he knows he "lost trust over the issue of Gaza" and that was reflected in the result.

"I'm determined to regain that trust, to rebuild that trust with my community," he says.

However, he says he also saw "appalling fake news, lies and propaganda used to undermine me as the Member of Parliament for Ilford North".