UK Prime Minister David Cameron yesterday named arch-euroskeptic Philip Hammond as his new foreign secretary, as he unveiled a major Cabinet reshuffle before next year’s general election.
Former British secretary for defence Hammond, whose appointment was confirmed on Cameron’s Twitter feed, supports Britain leaving the EU in a referendum in 2017 unless significant powers are returned to London.
The reshuffle is the biggest since Cameron’s Conservative-led coalition government took power in 2010 and marks a bid to widen his party’s appeal ahead of the election.
Photo: Reuters
He has promised a referendum on Britain leaving the EU in three years’ time if he remains prime minister beyond next year.
Newspapers billed the reshuffle as a cull of the “pale, male and stale,” which would open the door for a new wave of women to get ministerial jobs.
Cameron said Hague, who was leader of the center-right Tories between 1997 and 2001, had been “one of the leading lights of the Conservative Party for a generation.”
He was a leading voice calling for the overthrow of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad before the House of Commons last year voted down missile strikes on the country in a major foreign policy blow to Cameron.
His appointment followed Monday’s surprise resignation of William Hague, who in recent months had worked closely with Hollywood star Angelina Jolie on a high-profile campaign to end rape as a weapon of war and is expected to continue work in this field.
Hague will continue to serve as a minister with responsibility for managing business in the House of Commons until the general election, when he will step down as a lawmaker.
In a series of tweets confirming the news, Hague wrote: “From May 2015, after such a long period in politics I want to embark on many other things I have always wanted to do.”
“Renewal in politics is good, and holding office is not an end in itself. After 26 years as an MP time will be right for me to move on,” he said.
Hammond is seen as a safe pair of hands whose appointment to the Foreign Office would reassure euroskeptics.
“Hammond isn’t the kind of politician to set the heather alight,” political commentator James Forsyth wrote in a blog posting for the Spectator magazine.
“But the fact that someone who has said that they’d vote to leave if substantial powers were not returned to the UK in the renegotiation is now Foreign Secretary sends a clear message to the rest of the EU about the British position,” he said.
As well as Hague’s departure, about a dozen middle-aged, white male ministers are leaving Cameron’s government.
They are expected to be replaced by a string of younger women, many of whom were only elected in 2010, but whose stock has been rising.
An early sign of Cameron’s intentions was the announcement that Nicky Morgan would leave her role as minister for women and take over at the education ministry.
She replaces Michael Gove, whose tenure has been marked by frequent rows with teachers. He is taking over as the government’s chief whip, responsible for enforcing party discipline.
Liz Truss was also named as the new secretary of state for environment, food and rural affairs.
Political commentator Janan Ganesh wrote in the Financial Times that the reshuffle was “meant to show female voters that the Conservative party is not a woman-free zone.”
Labour branded the reshuffle a “massacre of the moderates” and a retreat away from the EU.
“Britain’s foreign policy is now set to be led by a man who has talked about taking us out of the EU,” shadow Cabinet Office minister Michael Dugher said.
“This reshuffle shows how weak David Cameron is, running scared of his own right wing,” he said.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing