British Prime Minster Shakes Up Cabinet

Insider promoted to health minister

In a bid to reshape his government halfway through its five-year term, Prime Minister David Cameron shook up his cabinet on Tuesday, but produced only one major surprise: the promotion of a Cameron insider, Jeremy Hunt, to health minister, despite his entanglement in a furor over ties between the prime minister's inner circle and Rupert Murdoch's scandal-tainted media empire.

The cabinet reshuffle had been billed by Cameron aides as a move to put a "reinvigorated face" on the government at a time when its political fortunes have been in the doldrums. In the face of political miscues and a recession-bound economy, political commentators have grown increasingly doubtful of the prospects for Mr. Cameron's Conservative Party in a general election expected to be held in the spring of 2015.