Cabinet reshuffle
‘Alan Johnson will become the new Home Secretary and Alistair Darling and David Miliband will keep the same jobs in the new Cabinet, Sky’s sources add.’ – Sky News
‘Defence Secretary John Hutton has become the latest minister to quit the government – although he says he will remain loyal to Gordon Brown.’ – BBC
Election results
‘The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have been making gains – and taken one council each – as the results of the English local elections come in.’ – BBC
‘Labour has suffered heavy losses to both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats in the first results from the local elections which saw them almost wiped out in former strongholds.’ – David Batty and Steven Morris, The Guardian
James Purnell resigns
‘James Purnell has stepped down from the cabinet and told Prime Minister Gordon Brown to “stand aside”.’ – BBC
‘James Purnell may not be the biggest beast in the cabinet, not of the stature of Geoffrey Howe whose deadly resignation speech brought Margaret Thatcher down. But the blunt tone of his resignation letter says what the polls and MPs’ own doorstep campaigning tells them: Gordon Brown cannot win the next election for Labour. Maybe no one can, but Purnell’s call for him to stand aside is finding support.’ – Polly Toynbee, The Guardian
Obama Middle East visit
‘Few speeches have been as eagerly awaited in the Middle East as President Obama’s address in Cairo University to the Muslim world. And few speeches have been as carefully crafted, as powerfully delivered or as comprehensive in charting a new beginning between civilisations locked for the past decade in destructive mutual incomprehension. If the President’s promises could be delivered, if his aspirations could be achieved and if his respectful tone could be adopted across the region, many of the toxic issues roiling the Middle East might become less intractable.’ – Leader, The Times
‘Barack Obama had set the bar high: to deliver a speech which addressed America’s dysfunctional relationship not just with the Arab world but the Muslim one; a speech which encompassed not only contemporary conflicts but past ones; a speech which would not only restate common values but redefine them in terms of Islamic teaching and the Qur’an. He succeeded spectacularly in Cairo yesterday.’ – Editorial, The Guardian