THE communications chief of Strathclyde Police has been headhunted for a £100,000 role at Better Together, the 'No' campaign in the forthcoming independence referendum.
The appointment of Rob Shorthouse is seen as a statement of intent by the campaign and a clear sign that money will be no object when it comes to defending the Union.
One source at Better Together said: "From our point of view his experience and background is outstanding, with an ability to reach beyond many of the usual message-carriers and across all parts of Scotland."
Mr Shorthouse joined the civil service in 2001 in the communications directorate at St Andrew's House and rose up the ranks swiftly, becoming a senior communications officer for Jack McConnell as First Minister.
In 2006, he was seconded to be head of media and public relations for the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games bid team, and he became the Scottish Football Association's head of communications in 2007.
Two years later Strathclyde Police's Chief Constable Stephen House brought him in as director of corporate communications. Mr Shorthouse was unavailable for comment.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article