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macnumpty
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Blowing one's own trumpetClearly, the good folks at STV (I refuse to do the lowercase thing) do not read my blog. Tonight, they expressed surprise that Rhona Brankin is the new Communities Minister, but when Chisholm resigned I discussed his replacement, and used the words: "My money's on Rhona Brankin, the Deputy Environment Minister."
Granted, I reached the conclusion by simple process of elimination, but all the same, I have been proven correct this time. Why can I predict this, but not the correct football results on a Saturday?
Anyway, Sarah Boyack is the new Deputy Environment Minister. Boyack was Transport & Environment Minister under Donald Dewar, then Transport & Planning Minister under Henry McLeish, then Backbencher under Jack McConnell, so this post has a 'Back to the Future' feel about it. There are three conclusions that we could come to (if we wanted to) about the appointment:
1. McConnell has been stung by criticism that his Ministerial team has a West of Scotland bias. Therefore the MSP for Edinburgh North & Leith (Chisholm) has been replaced by the MSP for Midlothian (Brankin), who has been replaced by the MSP for Edinburgh Central (Boyack). Even if Boyack's seat is very, very vulnerable.
2. McConnell is so worried about his long-term survival as Labour Leader that he is desperately trying to patch up the differences caused by his sacking of almost the entire Labour Ministerial team upon first taking office. Wendy Alexander is Convener of the Finance Committee. Tom McCabe is Finance Minister. Jackie Baillie seems to have become the Labour Party's 'fixer' and has got the Executive out of a number of tricky situations. Angus MacKay lost his seat in 2003 and Susan Deacon is standing down, so neither of them are a post-2007 threat.
3. The Labour MSPs who have not been appointed to anything at any point since May 1999 are such dodos, that even Jack McConnell will not let them near any levers of power.
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Reluctant Hero
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Re: Blowing one's own trumpet | macnumpty wrote: | Granted, I reached the conclusion by simple process of elimination, but all the same, I have been proven correct this time. Why can I predict this, but not the correct football results on a Saturday?
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Nevermind the football, are you any good with the lottery numbers 
Think the first two of your conclusions are spot on.
The problem with conclusion number three is why stop at Labour MSPs who have not been appointed to anything since 1999? Some of the MSPs appointed to positions of power leave me shaking my head.
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macnumpty
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If I were any good with lottery numbers, I'd be posting from my own private island in the South Pacific by now. 
Oh, and it's true that the standard of appointees is pretty low already, so how bad must the ones who haven't had anything be?
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