IN HIS first - and more wide-ranging than expected - Cabinet reshuffle, Tony Blair is saying one thing loud and clear..."I'm in charge."

For, plainly, the surgery amounts to an operation to chop down Chancellor Gordon Brown and his prime ministerial ambitions - by moving his henchmen out of their key posts.

And backing up this move to assert Mr Blair's authority is the surprise appointment of Jack Cunningham as his Cabinet "enforcer" and the man who will prevent ministerial spin doctors from putting anything other than a Blairite sway on policy.

This, then, is an exercise in strengthening the Prime Minister's position.

We shall have to see how well it works. But recent political history shows that, even in the case of a most single-minded and Cabinet shuffling PM, rivals need constant watching - for was not Margaret Thatcher brought down by two men she sought to marginalise, Michael Heseltine and Geoffrey Howe?

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.