Promotion for Dorset’s Knight (From Bournemouth Echo)

Promotion for Dorset’s Knight

7:07pm Friday 5th June 2009 in Search By Faith Eckersall

OUT of the carnage of today’s cabinet reshuffle came good news for one Dorset MP.

Jim Knight, schools minister and Labour member for Dorset South, will be attending cabinet meetings after being awarded the job of minister for employment and welfare reform at the Department of Work and Pensions.

Mr Knight learned the news on a day of unprecedented political drama as dire local election results for Labour collided with a series of cabinet ministers walking out of their jobs.

Speaking earlier today he said: “I’ll go to the ministry to meet my new private office and talk to Yvette Cooper, the new secretary of state and get a bit of briefing to read over the weekend.

“Then I’ll attend my first cabinet next week. I’ll be attending cabinet every week and that’s obviously a huge privilege.”

However, he said he would also be thinking of the many party members who had lost seats in the local elections after being through “a really rough campaign for us”.

In less than four days Gordon Brown has lost a string of cabinet members – including work and pensions secretary James Purnell, who penned the premier a devastating resignation letter calling for him to quit.

Mr Knight said: “Many good people have chosen to leave the government for a variety of reasons. But I think we have a very exciting new team that Gordon has put in place and I look forward to playing my role in what is a hugely important job. The country faces employment and unemployment problems, so to have that responsibility now is a real privilege.”

Away from the government, the dramatic new appointments failed to impress.

Mid-Dorset and North Poole’s Liberal Democrat MP Annette Brooke said: “I know it’s an old expression but it really is changing the deck-chairs on the Titanic.”

She felt announcements such as the appointment of Sir Alan Sugar looked like “a publicity stunt”.

She said she would like to see a general election, possibly in the autumn, but not before the issue of MPs’ expenses had been robustly addressed.