Chris Mackie: A bluffer's guide

As the SNP education brief begins life in a post Fiona Hyslop world, the clear line coming from the opposition parties is that her demotion (ok, sacking) was an example of Alex Salmond blinking first in the latest stage of his Call-My-Bluff style of minority government.

That the opposition felt emboldened enough to stare him down in his latest threat to walk out was emblematic of the torrid seven days his government has experienced. A simmering dispute with local councils, a lukewarm response to the referendum plans and ongoing education travails all added up to make it a week to forget for Salmond and co.

It is certainly true that the reshuffle (alright, sacking) has emboldened the opposition benches - the number of gleeful Tories, LibDems and Labourites eating lunch in the Parliament's canteen yesterday was significantly higher than it usually is.

But Alex Salmond is nothing if not a canny operator and he may well have felt that his powder would be better left dry to help him through the forthcoming budget negotiations, especially as the political tide is flowing against him in the run up to Christmas.

Much more is at stake for the SNP in those deliberations, and to take his government to the brink for the sake of loyalty to a colleague would have left him with much less political capital to play with in the new session. Yes, his position is lessened by this climbdown, but to stake his government on an education secretary that was the very definition of "embattled" would have been denser than the 198 brochure used to herald the referendum Bill.

Expect to see more of this in the New Year, with or without the chairmanship or Robert Robinson.

David Maddox: Breaking news - first cabinet casualty

Fiona Hyslop (pictured) has just been removed as education secretary by Alex Salmond after a string of failures.

She is replaced by Mike Russell. In turn Ms Hyslop takes over Mr Russell's old external affairs and culture portfolio in a non-cabinet role. However, Mr Salmond does not feel he can trust her with the referendum bill and has taken control of that personally.

It seems the final blow was a threat by the Lib Dems to hold a vote of no confidence on Thursday in Ms Hyslop. Interestingly, previous threats like this have been met with a threat by Mr Salmond to get the government to resign. But he clearly was not willing to stake the keys of Bute House on Ms Hyslop's woeful record.

Read more about it in tomorrow's Scotsman.

David Maddox: She's back! - Fiona Hyslop breaks her silence

After a couple of weeks of speculation on her future Fiona Hyslop, the beleaguered education secretary, has decided to come out fighting.
The rumour mill began in earnest a fortnight ago when she seemed to be sidelined in a debate on teachers with her deputy, schools minister Keith Brown, opening and closing. And there had been a little quiet speculation that Mr Brown was being groomed for Ms Hyslop's job after she had struggled to defend failed pledges on building schools, maintaining teacher numbers, reducing P1 to P3 class sizes to 18 and paying off student debt.
She was described as "silent and wretched" by Annabel Goldie in FMQs two weeks ago after her no-show in the debate and the main target again for Labour and the Tories in last week's FMQs.
But tomorrow's debate on the school building programme will have Ms Hyslop opening for the defence and finance secretary John Swinney closing.
And for good measure she is quoted in the Scottish Government press release defending the government's record as a preview for the debate.
"This government inherited a legacy of 260,000 pupils in poor or bad condition schools. In just two and a half years that number has dropped by 100,000," she said.
I guess we may hear some replies to that tomorrow.

David Maddox: Who is best to teach the youth of Scotland about financial prudence?

Obviously Gordon Brown would not be top of the list these days to talk about "prudence", a word he seems to have become less fond of since we found out that boom and bust had not really been finished.
But it turns out that SNP education secretary Fiona Hyslop has an interesting advisor for the "credit crunch" lessons for school children being proposed by the Scottish Government, as covered in today's Scotsman.
Labour's Bill Butler has uncovered that the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is to be her main advisor.
Yes that is the same RBS which went on a spending spree of world banks, bringing down the once great institution with purchase of Dutch bank ABN Amro. The very same bank that was bailed out by the tax payer and is now mostly owned by the UK Government because of its erm.. expertise in financial prudence.
There was a suggestion that bankers should retrain as teachers. Maybe Ms Hyslop has a plan to supplement former RBS chief Sir Fred Goodwin's massive £342,500 a year pension (reduced after he took a £2.7 million lump sum) with a job in the classroom.

David Maddox: Do the Lib Dems have anything to say?

Apparently not. It seems they turned down their chance to have a subject debate on Thursday, allegedly because they had nothing to table.

Labour have stepped into the breach with another planned stooshie on building schools and the Scottish Futures Trust. It will be interesting if education secretary Fiona Hyslop turns up to defend her record this time having ducked the last education debate. Needless to say Labour are already challenging her to come out of hiding.

But perhaps, she will take the line of the Lib Dems and decide again that the least said the better.

In fairness to the Lib Dems, I have at least received an explanation from them for their reticence.

The party's ever cheery spindoctor in parliament Jenny Stanning told me: "I've also checked about the party business debates - we only get four a year, not as many as Labour - so it's not really a case of taking turns. The Government offers slots to parties as part of the business programme and we decided that we'd prefer one of our four debate mornings to be later on in the session. Hope this clears up any mystery!"

David Maddox: Nationalist spring conference

In many ways the SNP's conference today started in Greyfriars Kirk in Edinburgh today rather than in its venue in Glasgow. Many in the party gathered friends and political foes to commemorate the life of one of Nationalism's greatest voices - Professor Sir Neil MacCormick (top right). More on the funeral in tomorrow's Scotsman.
But the official conference opening in the Glasgow Thistle Hotel was delivered by a more recent hero, John Mason, the man who won Glasgow East for the SNP in the stunning by-election last summer.
A contact in Labour has noted that "immitation is the best form of flattery" as Labour just a few weeks ago got their by-election hero of November, new Glenrothes MP Lindsay Roy to open their Scottish conference.
Some wag (apparently a member of the Labour student movement) has tried to liven up events by providing a conference bingo card.
On the link below are two bingo cards to mark off favourite phrases and names in conference speeches. The nice 'n easy one apparently gets delegates a tartan keyring, but the more difficult killer version's prize of shares in Iceland may not be quite as valuable.

Readers will note on the easy version that popular topics and people such as "Scotland's oil", "Glasgow East", "Homecoming", "independence" and "John Mason" are mentioned.

Meanwhile Education Secretary Fiona Hyslop, seen by many as a weak link, may not be chuffed to be on the killer version of unlikely embarrassing mentions along with "Kosovo", "Scottish Futures Trust", any country from the arc of prosperity (or bankruptcy) and any education pledge made in the 2007 election.
SNP%20Conference%20Bingo.pdf

David Maddox: more Ministerial Reshuffle

The reshuffle announcement is happening in the next few minutes but it is clear that there will be no new names at the top table with all the cabinet ministers keeping their jobs.

Some will question why Mike Russell (pictured right), the official keeper of squirrels and trees (environment minister), will continue to gather dust outside the cabinet while lesser talents remain.

A Labour spin doctor has just sent me a quote from November 12 2006, which might explain it:

Mr Russell described Alex Salmond as: "A leader brilliantly suited to guerrilla opposition but much less well attended to the disciplines and demands of any new politics."

Mr Salmond has the memory of an elephant it is said.

Then it seems that Education Secretary Fiona Hyslop (pictured left), the perennial loser of votes in parliament, will survive.

But, while she fails to impress political correspondents our education colleagues think she is often unfairly maligned. There is also a feeling that she was dealt a duff hand by Mr Salmond, especially on the dropped SNP manifesto promises to reduce P1 to P3 class sizes to 18 and match Labour's proposed school building programme "brick for brick."

What she has done, apparently, is charmed much of the education world, including universities and parent groups, which has taken the heat off the SNP government and is possibly worth a few lost votes. The feeling is that Mr Russell's more "arrogant and dismissive" approach (as opponents describe it) would not have the same effect.

Hamish Macdonell - Ministerial reshuffle

THE Steamie understands that Alex Salmond is about to reshuffle his ministerial team.
The ministers have been told and the new shape of team Salmond will be unveiled at 11.30am today.
The Steamie understands that while Fiona Hyslop, the Education Secretary, was seen to be in danger of being axed completely from the ministerial team, she is likely to survive.
Stewart Maxwell, the housing minister, however, is rumoured to be a likely casualty, with his workload expected to be given to Shona Robison, the public health minister.
Roseanna Cunningham, who has been languishing on the backbenches, may be in line for a move to a ministerial job, possibly at environment, with another move sideways expected for Mike Russell, the current minister for squirrels, forests and meadows.
ends