Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has begun announcing his new cabinet – hours after taking power in a landslide victory.
Here’s who the new prime minister has appointed:
Angela Rayner
Ms Rayner has been Sir Keir Starmer’s deputy since he was elected Labour leader in 2020.
She also becomes levelling up secretary – a shadow brief that she also held.
Born and raised on a council estate in Stockport, Greater Manchester, she had her first child at the age of 16, crediting New Labour’s Sure Start policy with ensuring her life “wasn’t written off”.
She worked as a carer and then a trade union leader before entering party politics.
Earlier this year she faced questions over the sale of her council house but police and tax authorities confirmed there had been no wrongdoing.
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Rachel Reeves
Ms Reeves worked for the Bank of England and then HBOS before entering the Commons in 2010.
As a teenager growing up in Lewisham, south London, she won the British under-14 chess championship before going to study at Oxford.
She says she turned down a job at Goldman Sachs, despite the fact it would have made her “much richer”.
Ms Reeves took over as shadow chancellor in May 2021 and along with Sir Keir has helped reshape Labour’s relationship with the business community and has stressed the importance of fiscal discipline. Her younger sister Ellie Reeves is also a Labour MP.
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Yvette Cooper
Ms Cooper and her husband Ed Balls are both veterans of New Labour – having had various ministerial roles under Sir Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.
Ms Cooper’s included chief secretary to the Treasury, work and pensions secretary, as well as health, and housing minister. While at the Department of Health she was the first minister in the UK to ever take maternity leave.
She ran for the Labour leadership against Jeremy Corbyn in 2016, coming third to Corbyn and Andy Burnham.
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David Lammy
Mr Lammy has represented Tottenham, where he grew up, since 2000 when he won the by-election triggered by the death of Labour’s Bernie Grant.
He was the first black Briton to attend Harvard Law School, where he met and befriended Barack Obama.
Under New Labour he served as minister for higher education and culture. By contrast, he endorsed his friend Jeremy Corbyn for the party leadership in 2016.
Mr Lammy has written widely about the 2011 London riots, which began in his constituency. He has also condemned Oxford University for not accepting enough black and ethnic minority students.
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Pat McFadden
Pat McFadden
A veteran of the Blair years, Mr McFadden has emerged as a key figure in Sir Keir’s inner circle. As Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster he will take a co-ordinating role at the centre of government and will have responsibility for making key decisions.
He is one of the few members of the new cabinet that has experience serving in government – under Gordon Brown he served as parliamentary under-secretary at the Cabinet Office and later as a minister in the business department.
Shabana Mahmood
Ms Mahmood became the first female Muslim in the House of Commons when she was elected in 2010.
She was born in her Birmingham constituency, where her father later became chairman of the local Labour Party. The family spent her first seven years in Saudi Arabia while he worked as a civil engineer, however.
She didn’t leave Labour when Sir Tony Blair backed the invasion of Iraq, instead running to replace her local MP when she did. She has spoken widely about Sir Keir Starmer’s perceived shortcomings on the situation in Gaza.
Wes Streeting
Wes Streeting was elected to the marginal seat of Ilford North with just 589 votes in 2015, having served as deputy leader of the local council beforehand.
He was raised on a council estate in London’s East End. His maternal grandparents both spent time in prison, his grandmother frequenting Christine Keeler while behind bars.
Streeting was a vocal critic of Jeremy Corbyn and has received criticism for some of his policies on the NHS, which he credits with saving his life after he was diagnosed with kidney cancer.
Bridget Phillipson
Ms Phillipson was brought up on a council estate in the North East of England, where she said in an interview she was “bullied for being poor”.
After her mother enrolled her in Saturday drama school, she got a background role in BBC children’s show Byker Grove.
Before going into politics, she managed the women’s refuge that her mother set up while she was at school.
Elected in 2010, she became shadow education secretary the following year, promoting a wider rollout of school breakfast clubs and hoping to “break the class ceiling” for young people through education.
Ed Miliband
Mr Miliband has been the MP for Doncaster North since 2005 and has played a big role in Labour politics.
He was a special adviser to Gordon Brown while he was chancellor while his brother, David, worked for Sir Tony.
In 2010 he was elected Labour leader in a fractious contest with his brother. He stayed on until 2015 and resigned following the party’s general election defeat that year.
He is said to have a close personal relationship with Sir Keir, whom he helped with his campaign to become an MP back in 2015.
Peter Kyle
Kyle overcame struggles with severe dyslexia to return to school at the age of 25 and ultimately get a PhD in community economic development.
He was chair of the business, energy and industrial strategy select committee and part of the public inquiries into the collapse of Carillion and Thomas Cook.
Before politics he worked as an aid worker in the Balkans, setting up an orphanage in Romania, and working as a cabinet office adviser on social exclusion on his return to the UK.
In 2012 his long-term partner and his mother died one day apart from each other.
Louise Haigh
Louise Haigh has been an MP where she grew up in Sheffield since 2015.
Both her grandfather and uncle were trade union officials.
She worked in parliament as a coordinator while volunteering as a special constable with the Met Police in Brixton, south London, before becoming an MP.
This set her up for being shadow policing minister under Jeremy Corbyn.
Although she endorsed the former Labour leader she now says she regrets the decision, backing Andy Burnham, Lisa Nandy, and Jess Phillips for successive leadership bids.
Liz Kendall
Liz Kendall came last in the Labour leadership contest that saw Jeremy Corbyn elected in 2015.
Before she entered parliament five years earlier, she worked for various think tanks and charities with a focus on health and social care, including the Ambulance Service Network and Maternity Alliance.
She ventured in and out of politics advising former caretaker Labour leader Harriet Harman and former health secretary Patricia Hewitt.
In the shadow cabinet under Sir Keir Starmer she has had the health and social care and pensions brief.
Outside of politics she dated comedian Greg Davies.
Jonathan Reynolds
Jonathan Reynold’s political career began as an assistant to a Labour councillor in Stockport.
Although he had aspirations of becoming a lawyer, they were put on hold when he became a father in his early 20s.
After stints as a councillor and a parliamentary assistant he ran successfully to replace his boss James Purnell MP when he announced he was stepping down.
He has two dogs named Kennedy and Clinton and employs his wife as a senior parliamentary assistant.
Darren Jones
He has only been in parliament since 2017, but Darren Jones has been widely touted as one of Labour’s rising stars.
Born and bred in his Bristol constituency, he worked in the NHS before training as a lawyer.
He made an unsuccessful bid at parliament in 2010, becoming an active union member instead.
On social media during the campaign he’s gained traction for his “candid” posts about life in politics. A leaked recording revealed him saying Labour’s net-zero plans would cost “hundreds of billions”, forcing the party to make clarifications.
Outside of his day job he’s a keen vegan cook and plays the saxophone.
John Healey
Another veteran of the Blair years, John Healey became parliamentary under-secretary of state for adult skills as soon as he was elected as an MP in 1997.
His father received an OBE for his lifelong work countering violence and aggression.
Throughout New Labour he was financial secretary to the treasury, minister for local government, and for housing.
He voted in favour of UK involvement in the Iraq War and has visited Ukraine, where he promised Labour’s commitment would be “ironclad”. He has matched the previous government’s commitment to raise defence spending from just over 2% of GDP to 2.5% by 2030.
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