THE Scottish Tories had a bit of a reshuffle on Wednesday, with Douglas Ross kicking two MSPs off his frontbench altogether.
The Holyrood group leader seems to have rewarded loyalty rather than talent, and the MSPs given a shiny bauble are pretty over the moon about it.
In fact, they’re so chuffed that they’ve made up grandiose new titles to put in front of their names.
“I'm thrilled to have been asked to serve as Deputy Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care in @Douglas4Moray's cracking new team,” Tory MSP Tess White wrote on Twitter.
I'm thrilled to have been asked to serve as Deputy Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care in @Douglas4Moray's cracking new team. Together with @Sandeshgulhane, I will keep fighting for NHS staff and patients in the North East and across Scotland. pic.twitter.com/7ff3qpihDW
— Tess White MSP (@TessWhite4NE) June 28, 2023
In a very similar post, her colleague Roz McCall said she was “deeply honoured to be asked to serve as Deputy Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills”.
And Pam Gosal, the party’s deputy chair (also an apparently newly created position), was equally delighted to be named “Deputy Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government”.
Those grand long titles the MSPs have given themselves seem to have come from precisely nowhere.
Despite what the Tories (and Labour) like to call their own MSPs, there is officially no such thing as a “Shadow Cabinet Secretary” in Holyrood. Unlike Westminster, it does not have an official opposition.
And if there’s no shadow cabinet, there is certainly no such thing as a “Deputy Shadow Cabinet Secretary”.
As the Scottish Government website makes clear, real cabinet secretaries “are supported by ministers”.
At a push then, these Tory deputies could describe themselves as shadow ministers, as MSP Graham Simpson has done.
After all, as the Scots Tories’ website seems to acknowledge that Gosal, White, and McCall’s real titles are in fact just “spokespeople” for their party. Deputy spokespeople.
But what MSP would want that title when they could be a “Deputy Shadow Cabinet Secretary”?
Also, the Jouker couldn’t help but notice there is a bit of a gender imbalance in the Tories’ new top team, which consists of 12 leadership and 12 deputy roles.
Of the leadership roles, 10 are filled by men and just two by women. But of the deputy roles, seven are held by women and five by men.
While six men – including Ross himself – have female deputies, just one woman has a male deputy.
If the Tories truly were a “shadow” of the Scottish Government's cabinet, they might at least try to mimic the gender balance (six women to five men).
