25 May 2007

More appointments

Firstly, the Law Officers. Elish Angiolini QC stays on as Lord Advocate, and is joined by Frank Mulholland QC as Solitictor General, having been supported by the Parliament without dissent.

Next, the Corporate Body. Tricia Marwick, who was due some sort of position, will be the SNP's representative. As trailed, Tom McCabe will be Labour's. Contrary to my earlier prediction, Alex Johonstone will double up as Tory Shadow Minister for Transport AND their Corporate Body member. Margaret Mitchell would appear to be the sole Tory backbencher, which is always a sign of trouble ahead. Anyone in the Tory camp know what's going on? Oh, and Mike Pringle is the LibDem representative.

Speaking of the LibDems, Nicol Stephen has finally extracted the digit and named his team. It seems that there was a good deal of wrangling involved, so he remains the Leader, but for how much longer? Robert Brown will take up the Parliamentary Business post and seat on the Bureau (a surprise, I expected him to get Education), and there has been no direct counterpart to Linda Fabiani, but John Farquhar Munro has been made Shadow Minister for Gaelic and Highland Culture.

Tavish Scott, Nicol Stephen's campaign manager and potential usurper for the LibDem Leadership, and former Transport Minister, has gone to Finance and Sustainable Growth (no surprise there), with Jim Wallace's successor as MSP for Orkney Liam McArthur taking Enterprise, Energy & Tourism, and new MSP Alison McInnes taking Transport and Infrastructure.

Jeremy Purvis takes the Shadow Education Secretary brief, and will also be Shadow Minister for Children and the Early Years. Donald Gorrie's successor Hugh O'Donnell will support him as Shadow Schools Minister.

Former Rural Affairs Minister Ross Finnie moves to Health (another surprise, I just assumed he'd keep the Rural Affairs portfolio), with Jamie 'seven mates' Stone taking Public Health and new MSP for Dunfermline West Jim Tolson taking Communities.

Margaret Smith takes the Justice portfolio (I was never sure who was going to get this), and she'll have fellow Edinburgh colleague Mike Pringle taking over Public Safety, as well as his post on the Corporate Body.

Mike Rumbles is the final Shadow Cabinet Secretary, taking Rural Affairs, with new MSP for the South Jim Hume taking the Environment.

Iain Smith won't have a portfolio, but he has been elected Convener of the LibDem Parliamentary Party, and technically, Michael Moore MP is still the official Deputy Leader of the Scottish LibDems.

2 comments:

Mr Eugenides said...

Any chance you could release these updates in podcast form, Will? I'm prone to the occasional bout of insomnia... ;-)

Will said...

Don't worry, just the Committees to go and all the appointments will have been made, which will enable me to bore you in entirely different ways. ;-)