Wills: Reprieved minister goes to Home Office

Downing Street has reinstated a minister sacked in last Wednesday's cabinet reshuffle.

Mystery surrounds Michael Wills' restoration to government only 48 hours after being dismissed from it and the resurrection follows press reports of a row between Gordon Brown and Tony Blair.

Formerly a parliamentary under secretary in the Lord Chancellor's Department, Wills, one of the chancellor's closest political friends, was axed and replaced by former health minister Yvette Cooper - another change said to have angered the chancellor.

Various newspapers report that in the aftermath of the cabinet reorganisation - which was much wider than many predicted - Brown "went spare" and angry exchanges followed between Number 10 and Number 11.

In what many regard as an "astonishing about-turn" the prime minister's officials were forced to invent a new ministerial post for the Swindon MP with an appeasement deal hastily cobbled together on Friday.

"The sacking and re-appointment of Michael Wills in the prime minister's reshuffle appears to be the most dramatic resurrection since Lazarus," noted a Telegraph leader.

Wills takes up a new unpaid position as Home Office minister for information technology and criminal justice - a department with a record of high profile computer project failures.

The MP claims that he was never sacked from the government, and following a call from Blair the announcement of a new job was delayed because "a number of details needed to be sorted out".

"The prime minister told me what he wanted me to do and he told me to come and see him in the next few days.

"He rang me on Thursday and I went to see him on Friday, when we talked about the job, and what it would entail," he said.

The rapid rehabilitation of Wills has embarrassed Downing Street fixers after press releases announced his departure from government - and which on Sunday still remained posted on Number 10's website.

A Downing Street spokesman played down the affair and rejected reports of Brown's involvement, but the issue of whether Wills was or wasn't dismissed remained unclarified.

"It is the prime minister who decides who is in the government," he said.

"As part of the reshuffle Michael Wills was leaving the Lord Chancellor's Department, but it was clear that we would be looking for specific projects for him."

Wednesday's reshuffle quickly triggered reports that the reorganisation had heightened tensions between the prime minister and his chancellor.

Sources close to Gordon Brown let it be known that he had initially wanted to draft in a loyalist to the position of chief secretary to the Treasury.

The chancellor is said to have had a row with the prime minister - arguing that appointments to the Treasury should be in his gift.

He is understood to have lobbied Blair to appoint the up-and-coming MP Douglas Alexander as chief secretary.

Despite losing out, Brown is said to respect tough-talking Paul Boateng, who was appointed as chief secretary.

Insiders claim that Blair ignored all the chancellor's key reshuffle recommendations - despite promoting two leading Brownites within his cabinet.

Brown was also said to be angered by the prime minister's decision to shift Yvette Cooper, the wife of his economics guru Ed Balls, to the low profile post as junior minister at the Lord Chancellor's Department.