THERESA MAY broke her pledge to be a progressive Prime Minister in under 24 hours yesterday after promoting hard-right figures to the cabinet. 

She vowed to lead a “one nation” government that works for all not just the “privileged few” as she walked into Downing Street on Wednesday, but her first proper day in office will be remembered for controversial appointments. 

Damian Green, the new Work and Pensions Secretary, opposed the introduction of the minimum wage in 1997, claiming it was “actively immoral because its implementation will knowingly cause people to lose their jobs.”

Priti Patel, who has previously backed the reintroduction of the death penalty, has been made International Development Secretary. 

And fox-hunting-loving, climate change sceptic Andrea Leadsom was made Environment Secretary. 

Labour’s Jonathan Ashworth said: “It’s difficult to see this new-look Cabinet as anything other than a sharp shift to the right by the Tories.”

Ms May definitively ended the Tories’ claims to be the “greenest government ever” by axing the Department for Energy and Climate, a decision branded “plain stupid” by former Labour leader Ed Miliband. 

Civil servants’ union PCS, raised fears Ms May was using the reshuffle as cover to cut jobs after the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills was axed.

But the decision to put gaffe-prone Boris Johnson in charge of MI6 as Foreign Secretary was still causing incredulity and alarm across the world yesterday. 

Labour MP Kevin Brennan said: “The appointment of the new Foreign Secretary must be the most remarkable since the emperor Caligula appointed his horse as a senator.”