During one of most bizarre moments of the election campaign, Willie Rennie laid his hands on Gary Tank Commander’s broken ankle and declared is healed “by the power of the Lib Dems”.
Nicola Sturgeon reckons John Swinney has that ability for real when it comes to ministerial briefs.
Commentators had speculated but few genuinely expected the deputy first minister to be moved from finance, a position he has held since the first SNP cabinet of 2007, in this reshuffle.
But Sturgeon has decided education is her priority so that is where her most reliable ally has been moved.
This actually makes sense on a few levels.
One, Swinney is a great negotiator. We’ve seen that through multiple budgets, particularly in minority government.
Now he’s faced with angry teachers threatening industrial action in the face of major reforms aimed at fixing our stalling school system.
He will also come up against universities angry at dwindling budgets and colleges still smarting from cut-backs.
In short, a problem solver is required and he’s by far the best in Scotland, perhaps excluding the First Minister herself.
She’s played her reshuffle pretty well.
Two people to replace Swinney, Derek Mackay with an overdue promotion and a safe pair of hands in Keith Brown.
Angela Constance, the beleaguered former education secretary, has been moved to essentially being cab sec for welfare.
Sounds important but when she announced the creation of Keith Brown’s new job, Sturgeon said it would focus on the new powers over tax and welfare as well as the current economic challenges posed by unemployment figures and difficulties facing many businesses.
So, it’s a snub for Constance.
Elsewhere, Fergus Ewing has been carefully promoted to get him as far away from energy as possible with fracking a big issue. He doesn’t agree with most SNP members on unconventional gas extraction so moving him to appease the agitated farming community is smart.
As is whipping away land reform from the right winger and giving it to a left winger in Roseanna Cunningham.
Keeping Michael Matheson and Shona Robison in roles where they have done well was easy.
Fiona Hyslop isn’t a problem for the Scottish Government.
This was an admission from Nicola Sturgeon that she didn’t get her first team quite right, yet that has been swallowed up amongst the meat of whether the new appointments will work out.
