Thursday 19 May 2016

For Your Information

Cabinet

John Swinney, Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills
Derek Mackay, Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Constitution
Shona Robison, Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport
Roseanna Cunningham, Cabinet Secretary for the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform
Fiona Hyslop, Cabinet Secretary for Culture, Tourism and External Affairs
Angela Constance, Cabinet Secretary for Communities, Social Security and Equalities
Michael Matheson, Cabinet Secretary for Justice
Keith Brown, Cabinet Secretary for the Economy, Jobs and Fair Work
Fergus Ewing, Cabinet Secretary for the Rural Economy and Connectivity


Ministerial appointments include:

Mark McDonald, Minister for Childcare and Early Years
Shirley-Anne Somerville, Minister for Further Education, Higher Education and Science
Joe FitzPatrick, Minister for Parliamentary Business
Humza Yousaf, Minister for Transport and the Islands
Paul Wheelhouse, Minister for Business, Innovation and Energy
Jamie Hepburn, Minister for Employability and Training
Aileen Campbell, Minister for Public Health and Sport 
Maureen Watt, Minister for Mental Health
Annabelle Ewing, Minister for Community Safety and Legal Affairs
Kevin Stewart, Minister for Local Government & Housing
Jeane Freeman, Minister for Social Security
Alasdair Allan, Minister for International Development and Europe


47 comments:

  1. SNP team is talented, but poor Fergus Ewing has a hell of a job waiting for him! £150m in EU fines June-November sliding scale upward if they don't sort that farm payments mess up!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. What of the Tory team? Is it new blood?

      I wonder who will be in the Labour team. The same lot as before I suspect.

      Delete
    2. It always amazed me, why governments always make a hash of IT systems. The HMRC, DWP etc, new systems not as effective as promised, some eventually scrapped.
      The SG have made payments to 80% of farmers, which clearly isn't a success, but neither is it the catastrophic event the unionist press etc are making it out to be.
      Hopefully it will get sorted, and the farmers get paid; what they are due, within time.

      Does anyone know how Westminster is fairing, with regards to these payments?

      Delete
    3. Every year in the past they have made a mess of it.

      They use a different system from Wales and NI and us.



      Delete
    4. Spent most of my working life in IT.

      From experience I would say that the reason that Governments make a mess of IT projects is the penchant for a “Big new system all in one bang.” syndrome.

      The systems staff and programmers get told how the system is to work for what you might call the basic functions with the majority of variations in how items are processed.The IT folks then design the system to cope with what they have been told about.

      What is rarely discussed are the dozens and dozens of one-off exceptions there are to the rules that have been set out. These usually come to light well after the basic system is built. In my experience, many do not come to light until the project is on the brink of implementation. The more of these exceptions there are and the more radically they differ from the basic functions/variations originally outlined, and the later they come to light the more difficult it is to incorporate them into the basic system, and the bigger the impact on the implementation schedule.

      Just look at how the EU went through this process. As I understand it,the EU made the basic decision to move from Single Farm Payments to CAP payments in 2012 and then spent two years working out the details. Even as a retired IT person that statement gives me the heebie jeebies – especially as I know that the Westminster Government was the one at the table “working out“ the details.

      Delete
    5. Thanks for the insight BSJ.

      Heaven help us if the London government had anything to do with it.

      Delete
  2. Dean is that the payments due in June? Because I thought it might be the money the Westminster Tories diverted to England. Helena

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    Replies
    1. They do seem to diddle Scottish farmers. I don't know enough about it to comment.

      Delete
  3. particularly pleased about Jeanne Freeman being appointed - she's an excellent speaker and has solid progressive credentials. I think she'll be an asset to Holyrood. Tomkins in that remit - sweet baby Jesus. If it had been justice perhaps...

    Popcorn time!

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    Replies
    1. LOL...

      Should be a good laugh.

      I haven't come across Jeanne. I look forward to learning about her.

      Delete
    2. well you can watch her here with Andrew Neil

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23m6CukRUGM

      she took no prisoners

      Delete
    3. Yes she's good.

      I'd forgotten about how awful Mr Miliband was. How incredibly insincere and wooden. No bloody wonder they lost.

      Delete
  4. Yes! Helena. How did Westminster get away with diverting £340 million intended to Scots farmers to English farmers in the rich SE? Well, we know the answer - being the bullies they are they do as they please! Colonialism by any name!

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    Replies
    1. Probably the royal estate. That's why I was so surprised that Gove swore that she was so against it. She profits massively from its largess.

      Delete
  5. Umm these days you look at a snp line up like that
    and you gotta wonder who is carrying on with who...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh, you are awful, but I tolerate you.

      Delete
    2. That may be the kind of thing you think when you see ordinary people in a group... If so then it says more about you than about them.

      It kinda reminds me of these guest house owners back in the days when there was a case where some gay guys had been refused rooms because the owner "didn't like to think what they might be doing in his rooms".

      And I thought... "ewwwww, what a weird man. Presumably he must LIKE to think about what all his heterosexual couples are doing, in which case he's a right perv.

      However Munguin and I aren't here to judge, Niko. If you want to imagine the Cabinet 'occupatos in sexualem operationes', as it were, feel free.

      Just keep it to yourself. :)

      Delete
    3. He is awful Jim... but he's our awful...

      Delete
    4. Oeer ! Handbags.......so sensitive


      http://m.memepile.com/photo?id=2921

      Delete
    5. Gross Niko!

      Delete
    6. Niko:

      Has Kez done her shadow cabinet yet?

      Does anyone know if Willie's going to bother?

      Delete
    7. tris or mr so sensitive

      Kez has sent out mini bus to pick up all the Scottish
      MPs and msps to have a meeting about new positions,,
      It's a nine seater lol

      Delete
    8. Oh... is Willie sending round a bike?

      Delete
    9. "Geoss Niko!"

      I'm not keen on tomato ketchup either Tris.

      Delete
  6. tris

    Just to stop this turning into some kind of psychodrama i
    Will just have to accept your amendment ........

    ReplyDelete
  7. It's nice to see there is more than just Ruth in the Ruth party. I wonder who will be in Labour's new team? They have an embarrassment of riches!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It will be mainly the same lot as in the last cabinet, which is the same lot that were in Jim's cabinet and the same lot that were in Johann's cabinet and Iain's come to that.

      Delete
    2. On the Ruth in the Ruth Party? How is that even possible? Unless you were also a Ruth, I suppose.

      Walks away looking suspiciously over his shoulder at the Zombie Ruth's lurching after him....

      On a cheerier note, SNP 1 & 2!

      Delete
  8. More like a richness of embarassment!

    ReplyDelete
  9. 'For Your Information'

    It just occurred to me what a public service Munguins republic can be sometimes.

    How did that song go?

    "I once was lost but now I'm found,
    Was blind, but now, I see.

    T'was Grace that taught,
    my heart to fear.
    And Grace, my fears relieved.
    How precious did that Grace appear,
    the hour I first believed."

    :P

    #IStillVoteNo

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ah yes, Dean... do you think we could get a government grant?

      Munguin Towers needs some new carpets and we are providing a service....

      Delete
    2. I dunno... if you label yourself a 'legal personality' as a corporation you actually could... or alternatively make Munguin a legal charity. No tax!

      Delete
    3. Ha ha... Munguin is a law abiding media mogul. He doesn't want Gideon calling him immoral!!

      He'll just send me out singing on the street corners with my cap in front of me instead.

      He'll have his carpets come what may!

      Delete
  10. On the other hand:

    http://www.last.fm/music/Joan+Baez/_/There+But+For+Fortune

    ReplyDelete
  11. That was for Dean Mackinnon Thomson, probably the best centre half in the Unionist Coalition football team.

    ReplyDelete
  12. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Beautiful song Douglas.

      Delete
    2. I think so.

      I would be interested in the likes of Dean Mackinnon Thomson's opinion. For we are accused of being exclusive nationalists when it is his side that want to exclude bairns from coming here.

      I think, whatever else you are, an independenist voter or a unionist voter, there ought to be some sort of common humanity about the children washed up on our shores.

      Apparently the solution is now to send them back from whence they came.

      I could never agree to that.

      If we are a nation, I clearly mean Scotland, and I think we are, we should embrace these orphans of global insanity, not for a moment, hesitate.

      Take them in.

      Just saying.

      Delete
    3. Agreed.

      It's a terrible thing when we can't help kids.

      And they call this a Christian country.

      Aye right

      Delete
    4. Well, they lie to us.

      It is what they do.

      Xenophobia rules OK? That wain, born over there a sure to be a suicide bomber, let's reject it?

      They can catch votes with that, but not all of our votes!

      I have more faith in people than I have in manipulation. Tho' it is a close run thing.

      Delete
  13. Tris,

    If you are interested in an old meme of mine, Joan Baez is a beautiful human being:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCKGilveEWM

    ReplyDelete
  14. I see Barca fans are going to fly the Saltire instead of the banned Estelada at the Copa del Rey.

    Yoons never learn...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for the info.

      I think it was the Wee Ginger Dug that suggested that we had more in common with Catalonia than we did with Ulster.

      Delete
  15. Tris,

    This is briliant but very long:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mb55teXcR90

    ReplyDelete