He forgot

Remember when Labour's reshuffle was announced and I pointed out that there was no shadow minister for transport nor one for climate change? Want to know why? They forgot. Yesterday when a story was breaking about ferries, Labour was asked for a comment from their transport spokesperson and they said "um ... hang on a minute", climbed into a cupboard, hasty a hasty confab and then announced that Charlie Gordon was in transports of delight and Cathy Peattie was responsible for climate change (and you thought it was greenhouse gases!). Anyone would think that this reshuffle was done in a panic.

You can understand why Labour might want to forget about transport given their record on trams in the capital but Climate Change? Does no-one in the Labour party read the newspapers? Sheesh! Here's a thing, though, Iain Gray was saying that he was sure that Wendy Alexander would return to a front bench position without actually promoting her to a front bench position - then he promoted Charlie Gordon, the guy who brought about her downfall. Does he really dislike her that much?

I was right as well - James Kelly has been promoted (although it's community safety rather than transport).

Here's a thing, though, why stop John Park talking about apprenticeships and move him into a mute role? Might it be that the Labour Government in London will be cutting apprenticeship funding in the budget and so John has to be silenced well in advance in the hope that no-one will remember he made a big thing of it?

Here's another interesting thing - the SNP Government has 6 Cabinet Secretaries and 10 Ministers; a total of 16. The old Lab/Lib Scottish Executive had 22. If there was a terrible calamity and Labour took power today they would have 26 (assuming their junior whips don't get Ministerial posts). Not only more Ministers than the SNP, but more Ministers than they shared with the Lib Dems back in the bad old days - along with the Ministerial salaries, of course...

One more thing too; for the sake of decency I would have thought that Lewis Macdonald's name would be spelled correctly on his own party's website. And to think they want to run the country.

Wrap up warm now, mind how you go!