The main players in Gordon Brown's new team.
DAVID MILIBAND, FOREIGN SECRETARY
David Miliband has always been precocious, and the 41-year-old's career seems poised for another significant elevation. Like Wayne Rooney - to whom Tony Blair once compared him - he has matured from a youthful star to a central player in the top team.
He has long been earmarked as prime ministerial material, and Blairites waged a long campaign for him to challenge Gordon Brown. But his other nickname is "Brains". He decided against, apparently fearing either damage to his own career - or to the party.
His family's preoccupation with politics was always likely to tell. His father was the Marxist writer Ralph; his mother, Marion Kozak, is another left-wing intellectual.
He gained a first in politics, philosophy and economics at Oxford. After a brief stint at the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, and a longer turn at a think tank, Miliband became Blair's head of policy.
He left No 10 in 2001 to stand in South Shields and, within a year, was schools minister. In 2005, he joined the cabinet.
Colleagues say he is a rigorous, serious thinker. At times his approach is a curious blend of populism and earnestness: he has an avatar in Second Life and instituted the first ministerial blog "to bridge the gap between politicians and the public". But his postings are heavy on detail.
Colleagues say he can appear aloof, sometimes impatient and occasionally a little patronising; a frequent refrain is that younger brother Ed - a Brown favourite, and charities minister - is "smarter and warmer".
But those who have worked with him closely enthuse about his "niceness", saying diffidence is misconstrued as arrogance, and that constituency work and ministerial experience have finessed his manner.
He is certainly a devoted father and a supportive husband to his wife, Louise Shackleton.
Friends believe his concern to protect his family played a part in his decision not to run against Brown. He may, of course, hope to succeed the new prime minister. But, like his admirers and opponents, he must be wondering whether yesterday's announcement is the next step on his path to No 10. - (Guardian service)
ALISTAIR DARLING, CHANCELLOR
Alistair Darling is the technocrat's technocrat. In a parliament known for its lack of colour, the new chancellor of the exchequer is seen - somewhat unfairly - as the ultimate grey man.
In part, the reputation for extreme dullness is a function of his looks - the shock of white hair that give him the air of a reassuring Edinburgh solicitor, which he was, before entering the Commons in 1987. In part, it comes from the jobs he has done, none of them of the top rank.
The great-nephew of Sir William Darling, who was Conservative MP for Edinburgh South (1945-1957), he went to Loretto School in Musselburgh, East Lothian, before studying law at Aberdeen University. In 1986, he married Margaret McQueen Vaughan, a journalist, and they have a son and a daughter. He will be returning to the treasury, where he was chief secretary under Mr Brown during Labour's first year in office. Although Jack Straw had been touted as an alternative second lord of the treasury, sources close to Mr Brown said that Mr Darling's long, gaffe-free ministerial experience - including spells at key departments - made him the obvious choice.