Liz Truss has dumped Rishi Sunak supporters and installed loyalists into top jobs as she ignored calls to unify the party in a Cabinet reshuffle.
The new Prime Minister sacked Dominic Raab, who had branded her plans "electoral suicide", just 40 minutes after entering Downing Street along with Sunak-backers Steve Barclay, Grant Shapps and Shailesh Vara.
The wife of Veterans Minister Johnny Mercer branded her an "imbecile" after she sacked him. He lashed out at her for "rewarding her supporters".
Ms Truss made her neighbour Kwasi Kwarteng (who said Brits were among the "worst idlers") the Chancellor, right-winger Suella Braverman (who wants to leave the European Convention on Human Rights) the Home Secretary and cigar-chomping close pal Therese Coffey Deputy Prime Minister and Health Secretary.
Her constituency neighbour Chloe Smith will head up Work and Pensions, Kemi Badenoch will become Trade Secretary and right-wing Old Etonian Jacob Rees-Mogg takes the helm over a slashing of workers' rights.
Penny Mordaunt - who could have been PM if five Truss-backing MPs had voted for her - was named Leader of the Commons, a job ex-leader Iain Duncan Smith rejected. Ex-military man and Tory leadership flop Tom Tugendhat - who railed against many of Liz Truss's arguments only to back her - becomes Security Minister.
In a historic first, none of the four 'great offices of state' are occupied by a white man - and the Tories are on their third female leader while Labour has not had one. But comprehensively-schooled Ms Truss's three most senior colleagues all went to private school.
Much of the reshuffle was briefed to friendly journalists days in advance and it went mostly like clockwork with few surprises.
But Ms Truss is likely to be storing up problems for her party and herself later - by ridding her top team pretty much entirely of people who didn't support her leadership campaign.
We list all the sackings, resignations and appointments in the new Cabinet - with profiles of key figures.
Sacked
- Dominic Raab: Deputy PM and Justice Secretary. Rishi Sunak supporter was ousted after branding her plans "electoral suicide".
- Grant Shapps: Transport Secretary. Sunak supporter sacked despite trying to keep his job with a string of 11th-hour policy blitzes. Warned: "Now I look forward to being a strong, independent voice on the backbenches".
- Steve Barclay: Health Secretary. Another Sunak supporter sacked, wishing Ms Truss "every success".
- Shailesh Vara: Northern Ireland Secretary: Rishi Sunak backer said: "My best wishes to the new PM and I look forward to supporting the government from the backbenches."
- Greg Clark: Levelling-Up Secretary: Said it was "such a privilege" to have the job for 8 weeks.
- *Johnny Mercer: Veterans Minister. Sacked and issued a seething letter accusing Ms Truss of "rewarding her supporters". Said he had found the “burden” of carrying veterans’ expectations “extremely lonely and it has come at an enormous cost”, adding: “I will take some time out with my young family to consider my options”. His wife branded Truss an "imbecile".
- *Andrew Stephenson: Tory chairman. Remained neutral in the leadership contest but was let go by the new leader.
*Attends Cabinet but not a full Cabinet minister.
Resigned before they were pushed
- Priti Patel: Home Secretary. Resigned before she could be pushed after her replacement was widely briefed. The Foreign Office briefly 'liked' a tweet from Labour's Zarah Sultana saying: "Good riddance - you were an unspeakably cruel Home Secretary and won't be missed by anyone with a shred of decency."
- Nadine Dorries: Culture Secretary. Boris Johnson uber-loyalist and hardliner had been tipped to continue if she wanted - but is expected to be given a peerage by the ousted PM.
New Cabinet at-a-glance
- Prime Minister: Liz Truss
- Deputy Prime Minister and Health Secretary: Therese Coffey
Chancellor: Kwasi Kwarteng
Foreign Secretary: James Cleverly
Home Secretary: Suella Braverman
Defence Secretary: Ben Wallace**
Justice Secretary: Brandon Lewis
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for Equalities: Nadhim Zahawi
Levelling-Up, Housing and Communities Secretary: Simon Clarke
Business Secretary: Jacob Rees-Mogg
COP26 President: Alok Sharma**
Trade Secretary: Kemi Badenoch
Environment Secretary: Ranil Jayawardena
Work and Pensions Secretary: Chloe Smith
Education Secretary: Kit Malthouse
Culture Secretary: Michelle Donelan
Transport Secretary: Anne-Marie Trevelyan
Northern Ireland Secretary: Chris Heaton-Harris
Scotland Secretary: Alister Jack**
Wales Secretary: Robert Buckland**
Brexit Opportunities Minister: Not replaced
Tory chairman and Minister without Portfolio: Jake Berry
*Cabinet Office minister: Edward Argar
*Chief Whip: Wendy Morton
*Chief Secretary to the Treasury: Chris Philp
Leader of the Commons: Penny Mordaunt
Leader of the Lords: Lord True
*Attorney General: Michael Ellis
*Veterans Minister: James Heappey
***Climate Minister: Graham Stuart
***Security Minister: Tom Tugendhat
*Attends Cabinet but not a full Cabinet minister.
**No change
***New 'attending Cabinet' post under Liz Truss
Junior ministerial roles
- Minister of State in the Department of Health and Social Care: Robert Jenrick
- Minister of State in the Ministry of Justice: Rachel Maclean
- Minister of State in the Department for Work and Pensions: Victoria Prentis
- Minister of State in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport: Julia Lopez
- Solicitor General: Michael Tomlinson
- Minister of State (Minister for London) in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities: Paul Scully
- Minister of State in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office: Jesse Norman
- Minister of State in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office: Leo Docherty
- Minister of State in the Home Office: Tom Pursglove
- Minister of State in the Home Office: Jeremy Quin
- Minister of State in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy: Jackie Doyle-Price
- Minister of State in the Department for International Trade: Conor Burns
- Minister of State in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Mark Spencer
- Minister of State in the Department of Health and Social Care: Will Quince
- Minister of State in the Ministry of Defence: Alec Shelbrooke
- Minister of State in the Department for International Trade: James Duddridge
- Minister of State in the Department for Education: Kelly Tolhurst
- Minister of State in the Northern Ireland Office: Steve Baker
- Minister of State in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy: Nusrat Ghani
- Minister of State in the Department for Transport: Kevin Foster
- Lords Chief Whip: Baroness Williams of Trafford
- Minister of State in the Department for Transport: Lucy Frazer
- Financial Secretary to the Treasury: Andrew Griffith
- Parliamentary Under Secretary of State in the Department of Health and Social Care: Neil O'Brien
- Parliamentary Under Secretary of State in the Department of Health and Social Care: Dr Caroline Johnson
- Parliamentary Under Secretary of State in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office: Gillian Keegan
- Parliamentary Secretary in the Cabinet Office: Brendan Clarke-Smith
- Parliamentary Under Secretary of State in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities: Dehenna Davison MP
- Parliamentary Under Secretary of State in the Wales Office: David TC Davies
- Vice-Chamberlain of Her Majesty's Household (Government Whip): Jo Churchill
- Government Whip (Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury): Sir David Evennett
- Parliamentary Under Secretary of State in the Department for Education: Andrea Jenkyns
- Parliamentary Under Secretary of State in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport: Damian Collins
- Comptroller of Her Majesty's Household (Government Whip): Rebecca Harris
- Assistant Government Whip: Joy Morrissey MP
- Assistant Government Whip: Stuart Anderson
Profiles of key people in the Cabinet
Chancellor: Kwasi Kwarteng
The staunch ally lives a stone’s throw from Liz Truss in Greenwich, south London. As Business Secretary he spent weeks before his appointment setting out his stall, vowing “help is coming” with bills.
The 47-year-old MP for Spelthorne since 2010 studied at Eton College and Cambridge, where he was on his college’s winning University Challenge team in 1995.
He worked as a financial analyst for JPMorgan, before co-writing a 2012 pamphlet with Liz Truss that said Brits were “among the worst idlers in the world”. It argued the UK’s culture “rewards laziness” and “too many people in Britain prefer a lie-in to hard work”.
As Chancellor he'll be leading an emergency Budget, pencilled in for September 21, and an announcement on energy bills.
Deputy PM and Health Secretary: Therese Coffey
A close friend of Liz Truss for more than a decade, the scientist with a PhD is renowned for hosting boozy karaoke nights in her Parliamentary office and for chomping on a cigar.
Now Therese Coffey faces one of the biggest challenges in government - as Liz Truss diverts billions from the NHS into social care. Minutes after taking the job she coined a new acronym ABCD - ambulances, backlogs, care and dentists.
The 50-year-old MP for Suffolk Coastal since 2010 was brought up in Liverpool and attended state school, but saw Margaret Thatcher as her political hero.
She describes herself as a practicing Catholic and strongly opposed same-sex marriage when it was legalised by David Cameron. In June she said she would "prefer that people didn't have abortions".
The Liz Truss ally and close friend was branded "utterly heartless" by Piers Morgan when she hit out at school meal campaigner Marcus Rashford on Twitter.
She also sparked fury last year during her tenure as Work and Pensions Secretary when she suggested Brits should work longer hours to make up for her £20-a-week Universal Credit cut.
Foreign Secretary: James Cleverly
The Boris Johnson uber-loyalist, 52, has risen through the party since he was elected MP for Braintree in 2015. Born in London’s Lewisham Hospital and privately schooled, his Army career was cut short by a leg injury and he studied at what was then West London Polytechnic.
He worked in publishing, sales and advertising before co-founding a web publishing firm. He still serves in the Territorial Army.
He is a Tory loyalist who pumps out key messages on Twitter, often infuriating the left - though with a little more humour than some of his colleagues.
Home Secretary: Suella Braverman
The former Attorney General is among the few Tories who can match Priti Patel for hardline views. The 42-year-old wants the UK to leave the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects against torture and unfair trials.
She has attacked the “rights culture” that began under Tony Blair, and said schools do not have to use trans children’s preferred pronouns.
As a leadership candidate Ms Braverman said “we need to shrink the size of the state” and “get rid of all of this woke rubbish”.
Despite 41% of Universal Credit claimants having a job, she said: “There are too many people in this country who are of working age, who are of good health and who are choosing to rely on benefits, on taxpayers’ money - on your money, my money - to get by.”
Born in Harrow to parents from Kenya and Mauritius, the QC went to a private school with scholarship help and Cambridge University.
Defence Secretary: Ben Wallace
One of the few Tories to keep his job, the 52-year-old MP for Wyre and Preston North since 2005 was praised for his response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
A former Remainer who voted for Theresa May's Brexit deal, he attended private Millfield School in Somerset - whose alumni include Lily Allen - and the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst.
That took him into the Scots Guards in 1991 after a brief stint as a ski instructor.
Mr Wallace blasted Michael Gove after he scuppered Boris Johnson's leadership hopes in 2016, saying: "Michael seems to have an emotional need to gossip, particularly when drink is taken, as it all too often seemed to be."
But ironically, he was caught on a hot mic three years later blurting out what appeared to be the real reasons for Boris Johnson shutting down Parliament. He said: "We’ve suddenly found ourselves with no majority and a coalition, and that’s not easy for our system.”
Leader of the Commons: Penny Mordaunt
If five Tory MPs had voted differently she'd probably be Prime Minister. Instead the dark horse candidate gets a job Iain Duncan Smith turned down.
Ms Mordaunt lost her Tory ballot spot to Liz Truss by just eight votes in the MPs’ knockout stage. Once a moderate, her campaign leaned hard into “culture war” issues, leading to claims Tories didn’t know what she stood for, and she later backed Ms Truss to some people's surprise.
Born to an ex-paratrooper, named after a Navy ship and related to both Angela Lansbury and Labour's first chancellor Philip Snowden, Ms Mordaunt was educated at a Catholic school, a drama school and Reading University.
Since becoming an MP in 2010 she had a string of jobs including Defence Secretary but was sacked from Cabinet by Boris Johnson.
The Royal Navy reservist, 49, also took part in reality TV’s Splash and said “cock” six times in a Commons debate as a dare.
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster: Nadhim Zahawi
The stand-in Chancellor was also given the job of Minister for Equalities after backing Liz Truss.
The former Boris Johnson loyalist, 55, is a multimillionaire right-wing Tory who came to Britain as a nine-year-old from Iraq.
The MP for Stratford-on-Avon since 2010’s Kurdish parents fled Baghdad in the 1970s during the rise of Saddam Hussein.
He was educated at a West London comprehensive, then a private school before attending UCL and building up a lucrative business career. He co-founded the leading pollster YouGov before being elected to Parliament in 2010.
On the back benches he comfortably made a mint in the oil industry, being paid £350,000 a year by Gulf Keystone Petroleum between 2015 and 2017, where he served as the firm’s Chief Strategy Officer.
He was finally forced to leave the lucrative work behind when he became a junior education minister in 2018. He and his wife have an extensive property empire through private firms and he once claimed expenses on the energy bill for his stables.
Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Secretary: Simon Clarke
The Liz Truss loyalist has so far flown under the radar, which is surprising given he’s 6ft7in - towering over ex-colleague Rishi Sunak.
As Chief Secretary to the Treasury the 37-year-old, an MP since 2017, has been helping draw up cost-of-living support Ms Truss may adopt and was a staunch defender.
The privately-educated son of a solicitor led the Oxford University Conservative Association and worked as a lawyer and Tory aide. One of the youngest senior frontbenchers, Mr Clarke has revealed he suffers from agoraphobia - discomfort in open spaces.
Chief Whip: Wendy Morton
The little-known former Transport Minister is the Tories' first female Chief Whip.
The 54-year-old MP for Aldridge-Brownhills since 2015 takes the position after a string of sleaze scandals and complaints from Conservative MPs about the poor whipping operation at the heart of government.
It is a coup for the former civil servant and businesswoman - eight years after one Rishi Sunak beat her to the selection for his North Yorkshire seat.
Northern Ireland Secretary: Chris Heaton-Harris
Boris Johnson made the ultra-loyalist Chief Whip in February after he was a key member of the shadow whipping operation that has rallied round the PM, helping save his job at the time.
The 54-year-old has kept his Cabinet position despite arguably costing Boris Johnson his job, presiding over a catastrophic breakdown in discipline after it emerged the PM knew of allegations against fellow whip Chris Pincher.
The self-professed "fierce Eurosceptic" was a former minister of Theresa May's administration. He was accused of "McCarthyism" when he wrote to professors involved in teaching European affairs asking them to disclose what they were teaching “with particular reference to Brexit ”.
Business Secretary: Jacob Rees-Mogg
The Old Etonian MP for North East Somerset was tipped for Business Secretary where he would drive through a crackdown on workers' rights - with strike restrictions due to be published by the time Ms Truss gives her Tory conference speech in October.
From the 12-year-old son of a newspaper editor who was filmed in a suit declaring his love for money, to the 53-year-old investment firm owner, the MP’s gaffes and clashes with the left are too numerous to count.
He has waged war on civil servants working from home while Boris Johnson works from Chequers, and he himself lives in a £5m townhouse a few minutes’ walk from Parliament.
He said the rise of food banks was “rather uplifting” because it showed how compassionate volunteers were.
And he sparked a backlash when he was pictured lounging on the green benches in Parliament.
Work and Pensions Secretary: Chloe Smith
The 40-year-old MP for Norwich North - near Ms Truss’ constituency - since 2009. She was previously Minister for Disabled People at the DWP. But she sparked controversy in her previous job at the Cabinet Office for pushing through a crackdown that forces voters to show ID, despite fears it will shut the poorest out of democracy.
Ms Smith was schooled at her local comprehensive and York University before working as a Deloitte management consultant and being picked as a Tory candidate aged 25.
Trade Secretary: Kemi Badenoch
The former Equalities Minister was guaranteed a senior position after vowing "limited government" and a war on “woke” in a surprisingly successful leadership bid.
The 42-year-old MP for Saffron Walden since 2017 was born to a GP and professor in Wimbledon, though is keen to point out she had a job in McDonald's while studying for her A-levels.
Later she worked for the private bank Coutts and the Spectator, standing as a Tory candidate for the first time in 2010. She was elected in 2017 and rose fast - introducing Theresa May at conference in her first year.
Ms Badenoch attacked “dead weight” funds to help people with soaring energy bills - in agreement with Liz Truss. But they could clash after she said rivals should “stop pretending” they can cut taxes and the state can still do everything it currently does.
"For too long politicians have been saying… you can have your cake and eat it. I'm here to tell you that's not the case,” she said - before then backing Ms Truss.
