Britain's Brown to name senior ministers

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New Prime Minister Gordon Brown arrives with his wife Sarah at 10 Downing Street in London Wednesday.

LONDON, June 28 (AFP): Gordon Brown spent his first full day as British prime minister Thursday conducting a wholesale shake-up of senior government posts, with new faces set for the ministries of finance and foreign affairs.
An announcement was due on Brown's Cabinet inner circle at about 1100 GMT, with many figures who featured prominently in his predecessor Tony Blair's administration likely to be replaced.
But Brown again found Blair dominating the headlines following the announcement of his appointment as an international envoy to the Middle East soon after his formal resignation Wednesday.
In his first detailed comments on his new role, which he said he will start immediately, Blair said it was "a huge challenge".
"I have to prepare the ground for a negotiated settlement, and the key to that is to prepare the Palestinians for statehood," he told the Northern Echo in an interview published Thursday. "It is a fundamental issue."
Brown, newly installed at the British prime minister's official residence in Downing Street, said his friend turned rival was "exceptionally well placed" to take on the Middle East role and was "delighted" he had been named to the post.
Coverage of both Brown and Blair's new roles got equal play in the British media Thursday, mirroring the partnership that began when they were elected lawmakers in 1983 and endured, often turbulently, into government in 1997.
Brown has pledged to form "a new government with new priorities" that would be a force for change in Britain.
With many political commentators predicting a break with the Blair era, if not in substance but style, focus Thursday was on his reshuffle with rewards expected for his most loyal and trusted supporters.
In the key roles, Alistair Darling, Blair's former trade and industry secretary, was tipped as a virtual certainty for the post of chancellor of the exchequer (finance minister) that Brown vacated on his promotion.
Ahead of the announcement, The Times published a full-page profile of the experienced 53-year-old with a reputation for caution, but suggested he would have "the worst job in government" because of his new boss's former role.
David Miliband, the 41-year-old "Blairite" former environment secretary seen as a future Labour leader, was predicted to replace Margaret Beckett as foreign secretary.
In doing so he would become the youngest foreign secretary since David Owen in Jim Callaghan's Labour government in 1977.
But there was also the prospect of siblings in the cabinet for the first time since the 1920s, amid with speculation that Brown will appoint his former economic adviser Ed Miliband, 37, to a senior position.
It could also see the first husband and wife cabinet members.