Cabinet reshuffles are ruthless affairs. Witness the sacking of Michael Moore, the efficient and pragmatic Scottish Secretary, and David Heath, the Defra Minister.
Cast your mind back to last year when Sir Jim Paice, the Agriculture and Food Minister, was brutally removed from office in the midst of his formal announcement on the voluntary code of practice for milk contracts.
Current Defra Secretary Owen Paterson, at the Anuga food fair in Cologne on the morning of the long knives, was reportedly visibly shaken by the news that his deputy David Heath had been axed.
Mr Heath attended the NFU of Scotland annual meeting earlier this year and spoke positively about payments coupled to production for cattle and sheep a view wholly counter to Defra policy but one advocated by Scottish farming leaders.
Defra spent the following weeks desperately backtracking to regain ground and Mr Heath has now gone, to be replaced by Cornwall MP George Eustice, a former Young Farmer and member of Westminster’s Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs Select Committee.
This movement of ministers at Defra has become a standing feature of the Cameron government a point seized on by the SNP Rural Affairs Secretary Richard Lochhead, who said the ministerial change at Defra had come at an “unfortunate time” in the midst of CAP budget talks.
The subtext to the departure of Mr Heath was to make a comparison between security of tenure within the rural affairs portfolio in Scotland and the revolving doors of Whitehall. Mr Lochhead is in his second term as Cabinet Secretary and has been in office since 2007. All being well he will, like his Liberal Democrat predecessor Ross Finnie, serve two full terms.
By his own admission, Mr Lochhead will now have to spend time bringing “yet another Defra minister up to speed”.
The removal of Mr Moore prompted a statement from NFU Scotland drawing attention to the “substantially stronger relationships with Westminster and UK ministers” in which Mr Moore played a crucial role. Paying tribute to an outgoing minister can be worded in many ways.
The suggestions are that the Borders MP’s departure is regretted by the union, which of course judiciously welcomed his successor, Orkney MP and farmer’s son Alistair Carmichael.
But in this whole exercise of change, there are important issues of relationships between farming leaders and Scottish and UK ministers. Mr Lochhead makes no secret of his support for NFU Scotland. He regards it as an effective lobbying organisation which offers a single negotiating point for the Government.
Much the same can be said of his predecessor Ross Finnie, who formed a close relationship with Jim Walker when he was union president in the depth of the foot-and-mouth crisis.
Both Lochhead and Finnie would not be embarrassed to be known as “friends of farmers” a phrase coined by the late Sir Hector Monro, formerly MP for Dumfries, who served as a minister in the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for Scotland. Hector Monro was a farmer and proud of it, and he saw it as his duty to stand up for the industry.
Sir Hector epitomised a personal empathy with the farming industry that has been more characterised in Scotland than it ever has in England, and which has been exhibited by a large number of Scottish politicians regardless of their background.
The relationship between senior ministers in rural affairs and farming leaders is seen by some in the environmental lobby as too cosy. It suggests the union has too much influence and that farmers have a disproportionate access at the highest level. And it is argued there is too much sympathy to the farming cause.
That is to misconstrue the positive effect of building up good relationships historically and maintaining an effective political lobby.
Clearly there are other key interests in modern rural Scotland, and in expressing their views and concerns they could learn a great deal from studying the approach and technique of NFU Scotland in making its case.
That process is made much easier if ministers are allowed time to master their briefs before they are shown the door.