Reshuffle: complete. Government: finished

A cabinet reshuffle then, hot off the press, just 30 mins ago. So what's the news?

Losers
Clarke's off to the backbenches - hooray!
Prescott - "stripped of his brief" - a sad day for the 'true left'
Straw - now Leader of the Commons - the traditional resting place for a weary foreign secretary, especially one with a point to prove vis-a-vis Iran.
Kelly - quietly goes away.
Brown, G - not consulted (and remains in his post, obviously)

Winners
Reid - New Home Sec - the journeyman continues his rise
Des Browne - New Defence Sec - third Brown to serve in Blair's cabinet
Darling - Trade - biding time for Brown call up.
Johnson - Education - first real test for former pensions man.

Also rans:
Blears - Labour Party Chairperson - loyal, yes, but too embarassing on front benches.

And the replacement for Straw? Oh wait make that TWO!!!!

This is the most exciting thing to happen to the Cabinet since the Government took an absurd acronym and changed it to Defra. We now have two foreign secretaries!!

For Europe: Hoon!
What a choice, what bravado! The man who drove a civil servant to suicide is now 'Our Man on the Continent'.

For RoW: Beckett!
Another Blair stalwart, and we thought she was finished forever in the backwaters of the environment but now... front row! She's played a blinder.

In sum
Reivingorating - pah! A stale cabal of yes-men and -women. Blair can only gather this musty lot from the hedgerows and mothy cupboards of his crumbling estate so he bore can us to death for the rest of his term. It's a cabinet that's bad for the British but heartening in that it will only hasten the day the Blair jumps ship.

Beckett and Hoon! Can't help get a whiff of pig-shit about this one. Perhaps a ploy to drive policy past two weak politicians easier than one strong one. Hoon and Beckett not natural allies so Blair becomes new Foreign Sec. Stay tuned for excuses about complexity of world etc.