In terms of "brokering a peace" there may be something of the doomed piece of paper once waved by Neville Chamberlain about this supposed harmony breaking out in the Rangers boardroom.

There is a strong suspicion that it won't last; that with so many principals and agendas filling the picture, more trouble will come.

To some, it looks amazing that men such as John McClelland and Paul Murray can merely waltz back into Rangers. These are two men badly tarred by the events which led to the financial disarray and liquidation of the club in the late spring of last year.

McClelland appears to be an able man in Scottish business, respected by his peers, and a force for good. But not all Rangers fans share this outlook.

He was part of a previous regime - a Rangers director for 11 years and chairman for two - which saw the club catapulted into ruinous debt, and which chose to go down the controversial and ruinous EBTs route.

McClelland also riled some Rangers fans at the club's AGM in 2003 by making disparaging comments about the supporters, which saw him booed and heckled in the auditorium. I was in the body of the kirk that day - it was a terrible McClelland misjudgement.

Paul Murray, like McClelland, has the good of Rangers at heart but he, too, fails to convince a large body of supporters. While the pre-liquidation Rangers lurched towards its fatal crisis there was a strong whiff of some of the club's directors looking either impotent or downright cowardly as the drama worsened.

Murray, like McClelland, shares that unfortunate fate. He is a likeable and sincere man, but can he escape being implicated in these past Rangers misfortunes? Probably not.

Worst of all for McClelland and Murray, as they stroll back into Ibrox, are the withering words of Lord Nimmo Smith in his guilty verdict on Rangers' breaking of the SPL's rules in their covert EBT arrangements.

In shovelling around £46 million into EBTs over a 10-year period, Nimmo Smith stated that it was clear that these were player remunerations, and that they ought to have been disclosed by the club to the authorities.

He also commented - damningly for men like McClelland and Paul Murray - that it all amounted to a "serious contravention of the rules" and that "the directors of oldco Rangers must bear a very heavy responsibility for this."

There is, of course, one caveat to note here. Rangers FC over these years was run under an autocracy presided over by Sir David Murray - men such as the club's former secretary, Campbell Ogilvie, have repeatedly attested to it.

The question is, does this fact absolve men such as McClelland and Paul Murray - and others - from their inaction in these matters? It remains a moot point which is dividing Rangers supporters today.

And what about "the requisitioners", those would-be Rangers reformers led by businessman Jim McColl? They were said to be "determined" and "unflinching" in their pursuit of change, were they not? They "would not yield", right?

Well, they have.

It has been a strange business: much hot air which has resulted, it would appear, in their requisition being withdrawn, and the three figures they were demanding be removed from the Ibrox boardroom now being allowed to stay on.

So Craig Mather stays. Bryan Smart also stays. And so does finance director, Brian Stockbridge, the last a central character in the ongoing financial disrepair at the club.

Personally, I have found my widespread admiration for McColl called into question by recent months at Rangers. There seems something presumptuous and even cavalier about a man calling for root-and-branch change in the Rangers boardroom, when all he wants to toss in himself are airy ideas, and most certainly not any hard cash.

McColl has done nothing wrong and is entitled to his views about Rangers. But he now looks shrill and tub-thumping, and by no means a heavyweight player in this Ibrox drama.

McColl has talked the talk. But he hasn't done much walking.

So now, men like Mather and Stockbridge will sit around a Rangers boardroom table, with new figures who, in the first instance, were put there to oust them. This is a delicate détente.

Here was Mather, four weeks ago, taking a swipe at men like McColl, Paul Murray and co. "It doesn't matter to them that they have not invested in or helped the club, or that they failed to make an even remotely credible attempt to save this club in its darkest hour," said the Rangers CEO.

"Not a single one of them stepped forward willing to invest their own money. The club today does not require the type of people who stood back and did nothing when Rangers were in trouble."

Peace in our time at Ibrox? I sorely doubt it.