Big names survive British cabinet reshuffle

British Prime Minister David Cameron sought to inject new energy into his struggling government with a reshuffle on Tuesday, but kept unpopular finance minister George Osborne in his job. While most of the cabinet big hitters emerged unscathed, Cameron promoted culture minister Jeremy Hunt, who had resisted calls to resign over his closeness to Rupert Murdoch's media empire, to the health ministry. Addressing one of the pressing issues in his in-tray as parliament returns to work after the summer, Cameron sacked transport minister Justine Greening, who was seen as blocking the expansion of London's Heathrow airport. Greening becomes international development minister while former chief whip Patrick McLoughlin takes over her transport brief, as the government faces increasingly urgent calls for an expansion of airport capacity in London. In his first reshuffle since the coalition government came to power two and a half years ago, Cameron sought to rejuvenate the Conservative Party element in the cabinet with an eye on the next election in 2015. The veteran Ken Clarke, a former finance minister, was removed from the justice minister's job and given a roving role as a "wise head" in government, with Chris Grayling taking over his post. Cameron moved a trusted lieutenant, Andrew Mitchell, from the international development brief to become chief whip, the government's enforcer for parliamentary business.It will be Mitchell's job to crush the sort of party dissent that Cameron faced last month, when a senior backbencher challenged the prime minister to prove whether he was "man or mouse" over the Heathrow issue. But Cameron resisted calls to remove Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer who was roundly booed at the Olympic Stadium in east London on Monday when he presented athletics medals at the Paralympics. Two other key members of the cabinet, Foreign Secretary William Hague and Home Secretary Theresa May, held on to their jobs. The Liberal Democrat junior coalition partners brought former chief secretary to the Treasury, David Laws, back into government as a junior education minister. The well-regarded former banker was forced to quit the cabinet shortly after the 2010 election over a row about a housing agreement with his male partner. Many observers believe he is destined for a more prominent job soon. The promotion of Hunt surprised political commentators. He had clung on to his job in April despite claims his office leaked confidential information to Murdoch's News Corp. over its bid to take full control of British pay-TV giant BSkyB. Hunt, who oversaw the London Olympics as part of his ministerial role, was branded "Minister for Murdoch" by critics, but insisted he did not pass any confidential information to News Corp. himself. News Corp was forced to drop its £7.8-billion ($12.2 billion, 9.7 billion euro) bid for full control of the highly profitable BSkyB in July 2011 over the phone-hacking scandal at its now-defunct News of the World tabloid newspaper. Maria Miller was promoted to Hunt's culture, sport and media job.London Mayor Boris Johnson hit out at the removal of Greening, claiming it showed the government was intent on the "simply mad" policy of a new runway at Heathrow, and vowed to fight any such expansion "all the way". The charismatic Johnson -- seen as a possible future challenger to Cameron as Conservative leader -- favours the construction of a brand new airport in the Thames estuary. Cameron has vowed to "cut through the dither" and breathe new life into the recession-mired economy in this parliamentary term. But he has rejected calls to abandon his government's policy of focusing on reining in Britain's deficit through deep public spending cuts. A YouGov poll in the Sunday Times put support for the Conservatives at 35 percent, centre-left Labour at 41 percent and the Liberal Democrats at nine percent.