British prime minister David Cameron conducted the first major reshuffle of his coalition government on 4 September 2012. The reshuffle, nearly two and a half years after the government was sworn in, was highly anticipated, and eschewed the trend of annual reshuffles which had become common under the governments of the 1990s and 2000s. As a result, many ministers had been in place not just since the government was elected in 2010, but had covered the portfolio in Cameron's shadow cabinet or even earlier; Andrew Lansley had covered the health brief since 2004, when Michael Howard led the Conservatives in opposition.