The reshuffle is the lead story in the British media and has even appeared here and there in other countries. This is the last big one, we all assume, before the General Election in May 2015 (and what Scotland's position will be by then is unclear) so, give or take a change or two, this will be the team that will be leading the Conservative Party into that battle.

Some of the changes are not surprising. William Hague has been known as a part-time politician for some time and his departure was most likely suggested by him. He will earn a good deal more as a writer, after dinner speaker and general pundit than he does in Parliament even as Foreign Secretary though he might occasionally think back to the time when Margaret Thatcher mused about him becoming another Young Pitt. He did not. His successor, Phil Hammond, seems a little more aware of the reality of Britain's membership of the European Union.

From the point of view of the fishing industry the one departure, enforced, we are sure, that matters is of Owen Paterson from DEFRA. This is not good news. Mr Paterson made the odd mistake but he knows the countryside and refuses to go along with the fashionable views on the environment. He is also known as a man who is capable of holding independent opinions on various matters and of asking a large number of different experts on the subjects he had to deal with. His departure is seen as a sop to the Green lobby, which is rejoicing openly.

There is some silver lining for Mr Paterson: on the backbenches he will be able to speak out more openly. As a man who knows a good deal about the fishing industry and understands the pernicious and overwhelming nature of the Common Fisheries Policy, he will, we hope, make his views known in the future when he will no longer be hampered by a Cabinet position. It does not show the Prime Minister in a particularly good light, though.

Mr Paterson's successor is Elizabeth Truss, whose past experience tells us little about here ability to deal with DEFRA or with the various bits of EU legislation that her department is subjected on a daily basis.

So far as we can tell at this stage, fisheries will remain in the hands of George Eustice, a man who appears to believe in the teeth of all evidence that the so-called reforms of the CFP are genuine changes in a policy that cannot be changed without being dismantled. He also seems unaware of the fact that food labelling is wholly an EU competence. Maybe he is just pretending to b ignorant.