Britain gets first coalition govt after World War II

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Britain got its first coalition government after the Second World War as newly-elected Prime Minister David Cameron and his deputy prime minister Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, on Wednesday gave shape to their historic coalition by appointing the Cabinet. Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg have cemented their historic coalition government with a handshake in front of Number 10 Downing Street on Wednesday morning before starting with their first task — appointing the new Cabinet.
Mr Clegg, who became Mr Cameron’s deputy, will be in charge of constitutional and political reform. He managed to get Cabinet posts for four more LibDem MPs — Vince Cable is the business secretary, Chris Huhne is energy and environment secretary, Danny Alexander is the Scottish secretary and David Laws is the chief secretary to the treasury. This puts three members of the LibDem negotiating team in the Cabinet along with Mr Clegg, the party leader, and Mr Cable, the deputy leader.
Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg held their first joint press conference on Wednesday afternoon at the Rose Garden at Downing Street, interrupting their rather laborious process of appointing Cabinet ministers one-by-one. Emphasising their “shared resolve” to tackle the challenges facing Britain, Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg appeared as equal partners in the coalition government. The coalition, Mr Cameron said, would be united behind the principles of freedom, fairness and responsibility and its key purpose would be to provide “strong, stable and determined” leadership for the long term.“We have a shared agenda and a shared resolve to tackle the challenges our country faces; to safeguard our national security and support our troops abroad, to tackle the debt crisis, to repair our broken political system and to build a stronger society,” Mr Cameron said.
Acknowledging “big risks” both the parties face, Mr Clegg said the coalition will provide a “bold, reforming government” to make Britain fairer. He said there would be “bumps and scrapes” as LibDems and Tories were two different parties with many different ideas. “Until today, we have been rivals, now we are colleagues. That says a lot about the scale of the new politics which is now beginning to unfold,” Mr Clegg said. The press conference was casual and full of jokes and banter between the two leaders as they discussed their policy agenda, the new Cabinet and the Prime Minister’s questions.
Baroness Warsi, a 39-year-old Pakistani-origin solicitor, has been appointed the new Conservative party chairman. She will also be part of the Cabinet, the first Muslim woman to do so in the UK. The other Conservative appointments to the Cabinet included William Hague as the foreign secretary, George Osborne as chancellor of exchequer, Liam Fox as defence secretary, Kenneth Clarke as justice secretary and Theresa May as the home secretary among others.