Good morning, and welcome to the Unspun Morning Briefing.
John Swinney, as everyone knew he would be following the May 7 election result, has now been officially nominated as Scotland's First Minister and has pledged to govern for "all of Scotland".
After he is sworn in as First Minister at the Court of Session this morning he will appoint his Cabinet.
There has been much speculation about who will be his deputy after Kate Forbes stood down as an MSP at the election.
It had generally been thought that former housing secretary Mairi McAllan would be a shoo-in for the role, but over the weekend government sources were briefing the press that the post could go to former justice secretary Angela Constance or former social justice secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville.
Reporters and TV crew will be camped outside Bute House all day to watch the comings and goings and The Herald will of course be bringing all the news about who is in Mr Swinney's new Cabinet. I suspect the new MSP for Aberdeen Deeside and North Kincardine will be much in the news today.
You can watch all the developments unfold on The Herald's Live Blog.
LIVE: John Swinney to appoint his new cabinet
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Top team
Selecting his deputy will not be the only big decision Mr Swinney will have to make when he returns to Bute House.
Ms Forbes was among four Cabinet big hitters to stand down on May 7, with a fifth Angus Robertson, losing his Edinburgh Central seat.
Exiting senior government roles at the election were Shona Robison, Fiona Hyslop and Mairi Gougeon.
It will mean Mr Swinney will have to find people to fill Cabinet briefs for transport, rural affairs and culture.
Could Holyrood newcomers Stephen Flynn - much talked about as a future SNP leader - and Stephen Gethins find themselves parachuted right away into Cabinet?
Mr Gethins handled the foreign affairs brief for the party at Westminster and some observers have suggested he could take up the role vacated by Mr Robertson, which also includes culture.
Meanwhile, former health secretary Alex Neil has said that the new MP for Aberdeen Deeside and North Kincardine, Mr Flynn, should be made energy secretary as the party pivots towards a more sympathetic stance on the North Sea oil and gas sector.Â
Was the positioning of SNP MSPs beside Mr Swinney for a photocall in Holyrood on Tuesday a hint of announcements to be made today? If so, Mr Flynn, who was in the front row, would find himself a member of the First Minister's new top team.
And who for the job of finance secretary?
Could former finance minister Ivan McKee be promoted to the post?
As Political Correspondent Hannah Brown writes whoever inherits that brief will need nerves of steel, industrial quantities of patience and perhaps access to a very large stress ball.
With a £4.7 billion spending gap hanging over Scotland’s finances and SNP spending commitments to deliver, it feels less like a promotion and more like being handed the keys to a car with several warning lights (including the dreaded red oil pressure one) already flashing.
Read Hannah's analysis here: Who will be in John Swinney’s Cabinet after Kate Forbes exit?
Fresh bid for second place?
In a bid to reduce the number of Labour MSPs by one -and hence claim to be Holyrood's second largest party Reform UK deputy leader Thomas Kerr has called for Anas Sarwar to remove the party whip from Irshad Ahmed.
Mr Kerr said Mr Ahmed had called for Israel to suffer a "crushing defeat" in the wake of the October 7 attacks.
But Mr Sarwar said Mr Ahmed had "clarified his comments" and warned against applying a presumption of suspicion to politicians who speak in languages other than English.
I expect we will be seeing many such a call by Reform and Labour for the whip to be removed from their Labour and Reform MSPs.
Both parties are currently tied with 17 MSPs each and of course both would be extremely happy to see their opponents tally of seats fall so they can claim to be the main Holyrood opposition.
Emotional Reform
No sooner than the Holyrood election is over, parties are now preparing for two Scottish Westminster by-elections.
These have come about as a result of the former SNP MPs Stephen Flynn and Stephen Gethins winning seats in the Scottish Parliament - for Aberdeenshire Deeside and North Kincardine and for Dundee City East respectively.
This means there will now be by-election in their former Westminster seats of Aberdeen South and Arbroath and Broughty Ferry.
Attention to date has focused primarily on the former to be held on June 18.
The SNP's narrowly held the seat by just 1,244 votes and both the Scottish Conservatives and Reform UK are pushing hard to win the seat.
Reform UK candidate Jo Hart has come into the spotlight for social media posts she made in 2022 when she described actors as "satanic worshipping trash".
She admitted to The Herald that her comments used "overly emotive" language.
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