On Friday, former Deputy Prime Minister and housing minister Angela Rayner resigned after an ethics probe into her tax affairs was published. The move prompted Prime Minister Keir Starmer to begin a mass reshuffle of his government, with his new cabinet appointments here. Starmer’s timing made it a rather coincidental coup, with the news overshadowing the first day of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK conference in Birmingham. And if Farage thought day two of his conference would pass uninterrupted, he was mistaken. Today the PM is reshuffling his junior ministers and the first set of appointments have just been published.

The most significant changes are in the Home Office which is experiencing something of a clear out – with immigration minister Dame Angela Eagle and policing minister Rt Hon Diana Johnson moved to DEFRA and DWP respectively. Scottish Labour’s Michael Shanks has been promoted to become a minister in the Department for Business and Trade on top of his current role as minister in the Energy Department. Shanks has had something of a meteoric rise after winning the Rutherglen by-election in 2023 – becoming shadow Scotland minister ahead of the general election before being made energy minister last July. And businessman Jason Stockwood – who lost the mayoral race for Greater Lincolnshire to Reform’s Andrea Jenkyns earlier this year – will be made a life peer and become a minister in both the Department for Business and Trade and the Treasury.

The reshuffle remains ongoing, and there are a number of the 2024 intake hopeful they will get promoted into government. There are expectations that some of the new Starmerites – many of whom have worked in the Morgan McSweeney-founded Labour Together – may get government roles. But as more names get announced, Starmer gets closer to his headcount limit (as there is a maximum number of ministers he can have on the payroll) and the end of the reshuffle.

The full list is here:

• Jason Stockwood is minister for investment jointly in the Department for Business and Trade and the Treasury. He will also be made a peer.
• Dan Jarvis is a Cabinet Office minister, and remains a Home Office minister.
• Baroness Smith of Malvern is skills minister in the Department for Work and Pensions, and remains minister for skills and minister for women and equalities in the Department for Education.
• Lord Vallance is energy minister, and remains science minister.
• Michael Shanks is minister in both the Department for Business and Trade and Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.
• Alison McGovern is housing minister.
• Dame Angela Eagle is rural affairs minister.
• Rt Hon Dame Diana Johnson is work and pensions minister.
• Sarah Jones is Home Office minister.
• Anna Turley is minister without portfolio in the Cabinet Office, and will attend Cabinet.
• Alex Norris is Home Office minister.
• Sir Chris Bryant is business and trade minister.
• Luke Pollard is defence minister.
• Georgia Gould is education minister.
• Rt Hon Ellie Reeves is Solicitor General
• Lucy Rigby is economic secretary to the treasury.

Baroness Gustafsson CBE, Jim McMahon MP, and Daniel Zeichner MP have left the government. Defence Minister Maria Eagle and School Minister Catherine McKinnell have also been sacked.

More to follow…