The Reshuffle

Scotland is very well represented in the new Blair Cabinet: John Reid, Blair's fixer, replaces Charles Clarke at the Home Office; Alistair Darling moves to Trade and Industry, to be replaced by Douglas Alexander (brother of Wendy) at both the Department for Transport and the Scotland Office; and Des Browne takes over at the MoD. Des appears to be the only one of these who can't expect even the possibility of a West Lothian row in his new job, so that means he only has to worry about the restructuring of the regiments, Iraq, Afghanistan, and probably Iran as well. So he gets the easy ride.