Gordon Brown shakes up UK cabinet

London: Britain's new prime minister, Gordon Brown, appointed a trusted ally as finance minister on Thursday and promoted a rising star to the key post of foreign minister in a wide-ranging government shake-up.

Former environment minister David Miliband, 41, a reported critic of the Iraq war and once mooted as a leadership rival to Brown, was appointed foreign secretary, while loyal ally Alistair Darling, 53, succeeds Brown at the Treasury.

Brown, who switched from finance minister to prime minister on Wednesday after Tony Blair resigned, acknowledged he must meet a demand for change from an electorate tired with 10 years of Labour Party rule, and draw a line under the unpopular Iraq war.

Analysts said the appointments of Darling and Miliband signalled no change in economic policy after Brown's successful decade-long tenure as finance minister, but a shift of tone in foreign affairs.

Brown has accepted responsibility for the cabinet decision to back the invasion of Iraq but will want to distance his government from Blair's approach, which was deeply unpopular among voters.

"The opportunities and challenges of the modern world require, in my view, a diplomacy that is patient as well as purposeful, which listens as well as leads," Miliband said.

Miliband was reportedly sceptical about the decision to go to war in Iraq and, according to media reports, voiced his dismay in cabinet at Blair's reluctance to call for an immediate ceasefire in last year's Lebanon war.

Former foreign secretary Jack Straw and a loyal Brown ally becomes justice minister, partly to tackle a crisis in Britain's prison service, while Ed Balls, Brown's right-hand man at the Treasury, became children, schools and families minister.

Another rising star, Douglas Alexander, become minister for international development, a key plank of Brown's foreign agenda, replacing Hilary Benn.

Benn was appointed environment minister, although it was not immediately clear whether that brief would include energy.