David Cameron becomes Prime Minister

12 May, 2010

David Cameron has started putting together a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats.

Following his arrival last night at 10 Downing Street, the new Conservative Prime Minister declared that it would be a “full and proper” coalition between the two parties.

Nick Clegg has been appointed Deputy Prime Minister, serving as one of five Lib Dem ministers in the new administration. They are thought to include his chief of staff, Danny Alexander, who was being tipped for Scottish secretary, and children’s spokesman David Laws - both members of the Lib Dem team that negotiated the coalition deal with the Tories.

Other posts confirmed last night were George Osborne as Chancellor and William Hague as foreign secretary. Liam Fox as defence secretary and Andrew Lansley as health secretary were also thought to have retained their shadow cabinet portfolios.

On the Lib Dem side it is thought that there will be Cabinet jobs for treasury spokesman Vince Cable and home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne, as well as a number of junior postings.

The appointment of so many Lib Dem ministers means that a number of Tory shadow ministers will be out of luck and one of Mr Cameron’s first tasks may be to placate those who are among the disappointed.

On the central issue of reducing Britain’s record £163 billion deficit, they will go ahead with the Tories proposed £6 billion of spending cuts this year.

They will also scrap the bulk of the planned increase in national insurance contributions for employers.

Readers' comments (17)

Anonymous | 12-May-2010 12:54 pm
We will now see how good cameron is to his word when he said cuts won't hit frontline services. I fear it will be a case of same old tory boy.
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Anonymous | 12-May-2010 1:26 pm
Commissioning of primary care will still take place.

However in my GP's practice he has leaflets from the GMC imploring patients to contact their local MP's to get this commissioning malarky stopped.

The GMC quite rightly says outside companies are only interested in what is in it for them...eg financial gain as they have share holders to account to. The GMC says patient services will be hit and hit hard.

The GMC is at least doing something to highlight what is going on to the public.

The RCN is as usual doing nothing. I left the RCN years ago and i would advise all nurses to do the same..they are just a self serving bunch of nobodies.
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Anonymous | 12-May-2010 1:27 pm
In with the new.
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P. Damien | 12-May-2010 1:28 pm
And out with the old!
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Anonymous | 12-May-2010 1:28 pm
Andrew Lansley now becomes Health Minister. i shouldn't expect anything to really change.
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Anonymous | 12-May-2010 1:29 pm
Traditionally change within the NHS has always been slow as there is much resistence to change.
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Anonymous | 12-May-2010 1:32 pm
I think they will get a 5 year term and then be voted out at the next election. It is hard to see how they will be able to improve things over the next 5 years. In all reality the country will probably be taking a backwards step.
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Anonymous | 12-May-2010 1:36 pm
Mr cameron wants more for less from day one. He wants to cut the waste, the middle management and pen pushers not the nurses. He's said he won't hit front line services and i for one believe him. You can't judge the present conservative party on what happened in the past.
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Anonymous | 12-May-2010 5:02 pm
I think you can!
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Anonymous | 12-May-2010 6:18 pm
People have short memory's. The tory's ruined the NHS last time they were in power and i fully expect the same again. They just can not be trusted with the NHS. The NHS stands against everything they believe in. The forming of the NHS was the ultimate in socialist politics and the tories hate that fact. They won't want to go down in history as the government that privatised the NHS. Indeed they won't have to as that was Labours legacy to the country. Labour started this whole privatisation issue...Alan Milburn was the man to get it off the ground.
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Anonymous | 12-May-2010 6:19 pm
I thought Gordon Brown's resignation speech was very dignified and from the heart. It was the speech of a true statesman.
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Anonymous | 12-May-2010 6:20 pm
David Miliband looks like the leading front runner for the next labour leadership. He looks to be cut from the same cloth as Tony Blair. New Labour through and through.
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Anonymous | 12-May-2010 6:22 pm
I was nursing in the late 80's when we last had a conservative government come to power. Those were indeed dark days for the NHS and dark days for nurses. Mr Cameron has first hand experience of a first class NHS when caring for his daughter. Lets hope he remembers that well and remembers the wonderful staff and standards of care his late daughter recieved.
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Anonymous | 12-May-2010 6:24 pm
Ther will be another election later in the year. A lib/dem/tory alliance will not work. It is actually a good opportunity for labour to elect and electable new leader. The country will soon lose faith in cameron and hsi cronies and labour could jump on this and be elected back into power sooner than you think!
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Anonymous | 12-May-2010 6:26 pm
In Harrogate the tories and lib/dems have really got the gloves off now! This shows this coalition will not work.
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Anonymous | 12-May-2010 6:27 pm
Young people who have voted lib/dem will feel betrayed by this co-government. Ultimately i feel the lib-dems will have done themselves immesaurable damage.
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P. Damien | 13-May-2010 9:08 am
Just been to a meeting at PCT level. "We want more for less" we were told. Also looking at smarter ways of working eg working from home and also looking at the buildings the PCT uses....do we need so many? No mention of cutting back on the multitude of middle managers and ridiculous amount of politically correct training. I have to attend no less than 18 training courses a year within my PCT! Some of it quite frankly ridiculous.....diversity and equality! How much could be saved across the country through scrapping that (introduce it as e-learning)
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