Has there been a change of plan ? Weren't the offices of Secretary of State for Scotland/Wales/NI supposed to be being ditched ?

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7650343.stm

Any tinkering with the Scottish Office in the run up to Glenrothes is going to give the SNP a constitutional stick to beat Labour with during the campaign. Best not to draw any more attention to it and sweep it under the rug. If questioned about it they can always mutter Calman Calman and irrelevant stuff about getting on with the job and British "volues". (I'm not exactly sure what volues are, but Gordon Brown keeps mentioning them so I assume they're important.)

Why has Jim Murphy been given this job? And why bring back the role of Scottish Secretary as a sole role? I thought the idea of Scaling down the position was Labour's agenda. Now it seems they have done a u-turn. IT SEEMS THAT IAIN GRAY NEEDS A HELPING HAND PERHAPS??

We live in interesting times!

"IT SEEMS THAT IAIN GRAY NEEDS A HELPING HAND PERHAPS?? "
But, is Jim Murphy the man to see to it?

The way I see it, Labour now has two bites of the cherry. You can bet your bottom dollar that Jim Murphy will try and get involved in devolved matters - which is not really his remit.
In any case what happened to the mooted MINISTER FOR THE NATIONS. Was that not supposed to be the big idea. Suddenly the powers that be have decided that Scotland does need its own seperate Minister at the cabinet?

rickyross3359 wrote:
Suddenly the powers that be have decided that Scotland does need its own seperate Minister at the cabinet?

I would rather think it was the other way round: The powers that be have decided that Westminster needs a full-time prefect in Holyhood.