Insight: A minimalist reshuffle at Bute House, but is John Swinney just rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic?

This was one of the most minimalist reshuffles I have seen. In fact it was so small they weren’t even going to bother with the ritual of ministers going in the front door of Bute House.

In the end they relented and first in was Mairi McAllan, with the Clydesdale MSP returning to work from maternity leave and straight back in to Cabinet as housing secretary. It’s an important appointment because it’s hard to see how the SNP can go into a Scottish Parliament election in the midst of a housing emergency, which they themselves have declared.

You are also going to see a lot more of her because she will be the unofficial minister for media interviews as well. She was on Scotland Tonight on Monday and was the party’s spokesperson at the by-election count last week.

Mairi McAllan is also seen by some as a potential future leader of the SNP.

When she was going in to Bute House I asked her if she had confidence in John Swinney – “absolute confidence” she said.

The reason I asked was because The Herald is reporting today that there are plots emerging to challenge John Swinney’s leadership, or at least his authority, following the Hamilton by-election loss to Labour. On the steps of Bute House with his newly appointed ministers behind him, he said he was making modest changes to Government and would aim to “deliver hope to the people of Scotland through the realisation of our ambitions for Scotland, in making Scotland the best that we can be, and we can only do that if Scotland is an independent country”.

I spent four hours hanging about outside Bute House this morning. The place was swarming with tour buses and tourists eager to find out what was going on. The highlight for me was the line used by quite a few tour guides to explain the purpose of Bute House – “it’s like Scotland’s equivalent of the White House” was the line most of them used. In Alex Salmond’s day he was known to step out of Bute House straight on to tour buses and welcome the foreign visitors to Scotland – they just thought everyone got that kind of welcome.

Not so welcome news today for the previous housing minister Paul McLennan, who was sacked in the reshuffle, and the post bumped up to Cabinet. Alasdair Allan will also leave government to focus on campaigning for his Western Isles constituency. Gillian Martin stays on as energy secretary, and Maree Todd becomes drugs minister following the death of Christina McKelvie, which led to that Hamilton by-election.

In response, Labour and the Conservatives dusted off the oldest reshuffle cliché around accusing the First Minister of “rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic”.