The Londoners in the new cabinet

Sir Keir Starmer sits at a green table which has silver teapots and white mugs on it. The members of his cabinet are sat around the table and are clapping. Two Union Jack flags are in the background next to a white marble fireplace.Image source, PA Media
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Sir Keir Starmer held the first cabinet meeting on Saturday morning

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The first full day of the new Labour government has begun with a slew of Londoners - including Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer - holding their first cabinet meeting.

Here's a bit about each of them:

Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer

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New PM Sir Keir Starmer is the MP for Holborn and St Pancras

Born in Southwark, south London, Sir Keir Starmer is the first Labour leader to oust a sitting Conservative government since Tony Blair’s landslide victory in 1997.

He frequently describes himself as being from a "working class background" and often refers to the "pebble-dash semi" in Oxted, Surrey, where he grew up, and that his dad was a toolmaker and his mum worked as a nurse.

Sir Keir trained as a barrister, specialising in human rights cases, and was director of public prosecutions from 2008 -13 before becoming the MP for Holborn and St Pancras in north London.

Chancellor, Rachel Reeves

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Rachel Reeves smiles on her way to the first cabinet meeting

Rachel Reeves, a south Londoner, is the first female chancellor of the Exchequer.

She worked as an economist before being elected as the MP for Leeds West in 2010. She is now the MP for Leeds West and Pudsey.

She became Sir Keir Starmer’s shadow chancellor after the party's defeat in the 2021 Hartlepool by-election, and Labour’s win puts her in the key position in government.

Ms Reeves says she wants to stick to current strict spending plans and has wooed the City of London, getting business leaders past and present to endorse Labour’s economic plans.

Politics runs in the family as her younger sister, Ellie Reeves, has been a Labour MP since 2017.

Health Secretary, Wes Streeting

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Wes Streeting beams on his way to the first cabinet meeting

Wes Streeting has shadowed the role since November 2021.

He immediately ruffled feathers when promoted to the shadow role by saying he wouldn’t "pretend the NHS was the envy of the world" and has insisted the service would need to reform under a Labour government.

However, the Ilford North MP has also had very personal reasons to praise the NHS, after he was diagnosed and treated for kidney cancer earlier in 2021, then aged 38.

He wrote about the experience in a memoir in which he also described growing up in a council flat in London’s East End, visiting his bank robber grandfather in jail and growing up as a gay Christian.

First elected to Parliament in 2015, Mr Streeting had previously been president of the National Union of Students, and served as a London councillor.

Foreign Secretary, David Lammy

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A chuffed David Lammy en route to the first cabinet meeting

Born to Guyanese parents in north London and raised by his mother from the age of 12 after his father left them, David Lammy became the first black Briton to study a masters in law at Harvard.

At 27, he became Parliament’s youngest MP when he was elected in Tottenham in 2000 before becoming a junior minister under Sir Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

Energy Secretary, Ed Miliband

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The new Energy Secretary, Ed Miliband

Ed Miliband is best known as a former Labour leader having beaten his elder brother David, among others, in the leadership contest that followed the party’s 2010 general election defeat.

Recently, the north Londoner has grabbed the headlines for his commitment to tackling climate change, in particular his support for the party's now scaled-back Green Prosperity Plan to invest in green industries.

Although he has been the MP for Doncaster North since 2005, he has been at the centre of Labour politics for even longer, working for Labour MPs before the 1997 election win and as a special adviser to Mr Brown when he became chancellor.

Mr Miliband's mother is a Polish Jew and human rights campaigner who survived the Holocaust while his father was a Belgian-born Polish Jewish Marxist academic.

The family lived in Primrose Hill, Camden, a house which David has owned since 2010.

Since 2017 he has also co-hosted the Reasons to be Cheerful podcast.

Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Hilary Benn

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The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Hilary Benn

A veteran parliamentarian, Hilary Benn, from Hammersmith in west London, has represented Leeds Central from 1999 to 2024. He is now the MP for Leeds South.

Not a stranger to the cabinet table, having served under Labour prime ministers Sir Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

In opposition, he has been a leading Labour figure, serving as shadow foreign secretary and chairman of the Brexit select committee.

He is the son of veteran left-wing campaigner Tony Benn, who served in the cabinet under Labour prime ministers Harold Wilson and James Callaghan.

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