David Maddox: Welcome to the Greens' new keeper

One small aspect in all today's excitement over the reshuffle which has largely gone unnoticed is who has taken over the newly promoted Housing Minister Alex Neil's (pictured right) unofficial job as the doorkeeper to the Greens.

As mentioned previously in the Inside Holyrood column, Mr Neil shared a small section with the Greens, known to some as the SNP pocket, at the end of one of the SNP's corridors in the MSP tower of parliament.

The interesting dynamic here is that since the budget debacle - the Greens voting down the first attempt, then being publicly humiliated in the second when Finance Secretary John Swinney effectively dumped their free for all insulation scheme - the SNP can no longer rely on the two Green MSPs to get them out of a hole in tight votes.

But, with the combative Mr Neil now occupying a ministerial office, the Nationalists have obviously decided to persuade the Greens back on board with kindness.

Step forward Linda Fabiani (pictured left), who the Greens have always seen as one of their own in all but name - "a fellow traveller" as one Green source put it to me. Added to that there are few nicer politicians to be found in Holyrood, with the possible exception of the Greens' own Robin Harper.

So Ms Fabiani may have lost her job as Minister for Freebies (cultural events and foreign trips), but she may well have the comfort of finding herself among friends with the unofficial job of coaxing them back to the SNP corner.