Cameron unveils new U.K. cabinet after election victory
British Prime Minister David Cameron unveiled his new Cabinet Monday after an unexpected election victory that gave his Conservative party an outright majority in parliament for the first time in nearly 20 years, The Daily Star reported, citing news agencies.
Cameron stressed continuity in his leadership team, with most top jobs remaining unchanged.
Other parts of Britain’s post-election landscape fell into place as the anti-EU UK Independence Party rejected the resignation of its leader Nigel Farage and new MPs arrived at parliament for the first time.
The newcomers included 53 first-time MPs from the pro-independence Scottish National Party’s contingent of 56 lawmakers, including 20-year-old Mhairi Black, Britain’s youngest MP since 1667.
Cameron received a rapturous reception from MPs from his center-right Conservative party when he met them in the House of Commons, with repeated banging of tables and applause audible from outside the meeting room.
Afterward, his finance minister and de facto deputy George Osborne, who will oversee a fresh round of austerity cuts after keeping his job, said the meeting was a “massive moment of celebration and congratulation for the prime minister.”
As well as keeping Osborne at the treasury, Phillip Hammond remains at the Foreign Office and will work on renegotiating Britain’s relationship with Europe before a referendum on leaving the EU by 2017.