LONDON: Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron was due to sketch out his new government on Saturday after returning to power in a stunning election victory that toppled his three main rivals.Cameron has kept his top four ministers in place and boosted the nominal power of his finance minister George Osborne, but was to spend the weekend drawing up names for the remaining ministries in a rejigged administration.

He is expected to take until on Monday to complete his cabinet fully, then finalise more junior ministerial posts over the coming week.

Cameron signalled continuity by reappointing the same finance, foreign, defence and interior ministers from his outgoing cabinet — Osborne, Philip Hammond, Michael Fallon and Theresa May respectively.

Read: Cameron's Conservatives win big in surprise UK election

Cameron also made Chancellor of the Exchequer Osborne the “first secretary of state” — an honorific title that implies seniority over all other ministers and effectively makes him his number two.

During the election campaign, Cameron named Osborne, May and London Mayor Boris Johnson as his chief possible successors after previously pledging this would be his final term in office.

Johnson’s still has a year to run as mayor, but he secured a seat in parliament. Commentators have speculated on whether Cameron might give him a sinecure role to get him round the cabinet table.

The election victory is an endorsement of the Conservatives’ austerity programme and is likely to see a continuation of cuts to public spending as they seek to reduce a budget deficit of $140 billion.

Published in Dawn, May 10th, 2015

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