{"id":43562,"date":"2013-10-07T14:21:23","date_gmt":"2013-10-07T11:21:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/?p=43562"},"modified":"2013-10-07T14:21:23","modified_gmt":"2013-10-07T11:21:23","slug":"uk-politicsliberal-democrat-scottish-secretary-change-again-breaking-news-43562","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/uk-politicsliberal-democrat-scottish-secretary-change-again-breaking-news-43562\/","title":{"rendered":"UK Politics:Liberal Democrat Scottish Secretary change again \/ Breaking News"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Scottish-Secretary-Goes\"<\/a><\/h1>\n

Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg has replaced the Scottish Secretary in the first move of a busy day of reshuffles by all three main party leaders.<\/h1>\n

The Deputy Prime Minister replaced Michael Moore with Alistair Carmichael, saying “different experience” was needed ahead of next year’s independence referendum.<\/p>\n

David Cameron is also overhauling his ministerial team, although any changes are expected to be further down the Government ladder.<\/p>\n

And Labour leader Ed Miliband is mixing up his shadow cabinet, with Andy Burnham and Liam Byrne said to be frontbenchers in danger of demotion.<\/p>\n

Two Tory Government ministers – Deputy Chief Whip John Randall and Cabinet Office Minister Chloe Smith – have already resigned ahead of the changes.<\/p>\n

The departures increase the scope for Mr Cameron to bring in new faces to his top team, which is tipped to feature more women.<\/p>\n

They follow Simon Burns’ resignation as Transport Minister, who has stood down to launch a bid to become a Commons Deputy Speaker.<\/p>\n

Mr Randall, Tory MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip, said he had indicated at the end of last year he wished to step aside.<\/p>\n

The 58-year-old was embroiled in the “Plebgate” row last year, threatening to resign if Andrew Mitchell refused to quit.<\/p>\n

In his resignation letter, he said it had been “a great privilege and honour” to serve for 13 years in the Whips’ Office in opposition and Government.<\/p>\n

“I have nothing but the deepest admiration for you as a person, leader and Prime Minister. I will never forget the kind note that you wrote to me when my mother died last year,” he said.<\/p>\n

“You can be assured that I will do whatever I can for you personally as well as for the party, the Government and of course the country.”<\/p>\n

The Prime Minister said he “could not have wished for a more loyal, discreet, patient, trustworthy and committed colleague” and that he “had rather hoped this day would never come”.<\/p>\n

“You have been a rock, not just in the Whips Office since 2000 where you have served with great distinction as Assistant and then Deputy Chief Whip, but for the whole Parliamentary Party,” he added.<\/p>\n

“Your wit and humour are well known across the Party, but so too is your compassion; your dedication to the Party and to Parliament; and your steadfast reliability in good times and bad.”<\/p>\n

Ms Smith, MP for Norwich North, was only elected to the Commons in 2009 at the age of just 27 but was quickly promoted to the ministerial ranks.<\/p>\n

As economic secretary, she endured a toe-curling interview with Jeremy Paxman on BBC Newsnight when she struggled to explain a fuel duty freeze.<\/p>\n

In her letter to the Prime Minister, she said: “I have been privileged to serve my country and my party under your leadership.<\/p>\n

“However, for the remainder of the Parliament I want to be able to spend more time serving my constituents.”<\/p>\n

Sky Political Correspondent Anushka Asthana said: “David Cameron has talked before about wanting to have a third of his cabinet female and so far he only has four Cabinet secretaries are women.<\/p>\n

“What he will want to do today is move women up the ranks ready to go into Cabinet. Today they are focusing on middle-minister rankings. I expect we will see people like Liz Truss, perhaps Esther McVey and others start to move up.<\/p>\n

“We are also likely to see northern and working-class MPs moving up. People are calling this a flat-cap reshuffle.”<\/p>\nError, group does not exist! Check your syntax! (ID: 14)<\/span>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg has replaced the Scottish Secretary in the first move of a busy day of reshuffles by all three main party leaders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":702,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,63,17,1,118,14],"tags":[77166,59563,59561,59560,59562,7831,37800],"class_list":["post-43562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-daily","category-europe","category-general","category-hot","category-world","tag-breaking-news","tag-clegg-replaced-secretary","tag-liberal-democrat-leader-nick-clegg","tag-liberal-democrat-scottish-secretary","tag-nick-clegg-replaced-scottis-secretary","tag-uk","tag-uk-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/702"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43562\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}