Gordon Brown’s cabinet is taking shape and overall it looks fine – I’m especially happy to see David Miliband as Foreign Secretary. But there are 2 matters of concern. Firstly the Minister of State for Europe (most recently Geoff Hoon under Blair) had been entitled to attend cabinet, and that has been dropped by Brown. Secondly, Shaun Woodward has made it into cabinet as Northern Ireland Secretary (unpaid). I’ve always found Woodward to be very smug and this has been underlined by Lance Price in The Spin Doctor’s Diary (my post here, more here). I understand that Brown wants a broad-based cabinet, but did he really need Shaun Woodward?