Victorious Blair names new cabinet

Blair hugs wife Cherie as victory is confirmed

LONDON, England -- UK Prime Minister Tony Blair has made wide-ranging changes to his cabinet, just hours after sweeping to a landslide general election victory.

He replaced Robin Cook as his Foreign Secretary with Jack Straw, moved David Blunkett to the Home Office and removed John Prescott from the huge Department of Transport, Environment and the Regions.

Cook -- the most Europhile member of Blair's team -- will move to become the minister in charge of parliament and parliamentary business, Blair's spokesman said.

David Blunkett moves from education to take Straw's former post of Home Secretary (interior minister).

The spokesman said the reshuffle was a "mixture of continuity and change."

"Any prime minister after an election victory will want to take the opportunity to refresh his team," he added.

"It is essentially focused on the delivery of improvements to public services."

Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott loses his huge environment, transport and the regions department and moves to his own office in the Cabinet Office.

Labour veteran Margaret Beckett heads up a new environment and rural affairs department while former Trade Secretary Stephen Byers takes the rump of Prescott's empire -- transport, local government and the regions.

Blair will consider changes to ministerial positions outside the Cabinet during the weekend.

Earlier in the day, Blair declared his landslide general election victory a "mandate for reform" in Britain. Labour will have a majority of 167 in the House of Commons, the UK's main legislative body.

Speaking in Downing Street, he said: "It is a mandate for reform and investment in the future and it is also an instruction to deliver.

"I believe there is an even greater obligation on us and me to tell people what are the difficult choices and challenges we face."

He said the changes "would not be easy" but that Britain was "a special country with a special quality to face up and overcome the challenge of change."

Following five wins for Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party, led by Rev. Ian Paisley, the peace process has come under fresh pressure by Protestant hardliners renewed demands for IRA disarmament.

The DUP, whose five MPs in the new Westminster parliament will be the highest in the party's history, immediately warned Prime Minister Tony Blair the Good Friday Agreement must go.

Blair's Labour Party passed the 330 House of Commons seats it needed to form another government shortly before 3 am local time (0200 GMT).

With all of Parliament's 659 seats declared, Labour had 413 seats, the Conservatives 164 seats, and the Liberal Democrats, the third-largest party, 47 seats.

But the election is believed to have produced the lowest voter turnout since 1918.

Blair also paid tribute to the "extraordinary stoicism and resilience" of the opposition Conservative Party leader, William Hague.

Hague resigned on Friday as leader of his party after its resounding defeat at the polls.

He made the announcement after conceding defeat to Blair in a telephone call.