After a wild day in British politics yesterday, the situation has become more clear by this morning. Major U.K. media outlets were live-blogging all day, and all sorts of contradictory stories were being posted. After all that, I'm not totally sure that all of the following is finally final, but here is how things look as of now:
David Cameron, the Conservative Party leader, became prime minister Tuesday evening, several minutes after Gordon Brown resigned that office.
Some hours after that, the Liberal Democrats approved their party's participation in a coalition government with the Conservatives. Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg is deputy prime minister.
William Hague, 49 (an old man by the standards of this government), is foreign secretary. He has been a member of Parliament (MP) since 1989. Hague was elected leader of the Conservative Party in the wake of the party's landslide defeat in the 1997 general election. He held that position until 2001, when he resigned after leading the party into another landslide loss, in the 2001 general election.
George Osborne, a 38-year-old Conservative, is chancellor of the exchequer. He was first elected to the House of Commons in 2001. Osborne became shadow chancellor when Cameron took over as party leader in 2005.
The BBC has provided a summary of the Cabinet appointments so far, including the names of four Liberal Democrats in the Cabinet.
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