Compromise normally makes a good umbrella, but often a poor roof. John Swinney, Scotland’s new First Minister, will hope that the roof will be good enough to see his Government, and his party, through to the 2026 Scottish Parliament elections.

It most likely will. Last month, the SNP was the senior partner in a government which was struggling on policy and whose priorities appeared woefully skewed, led by people who, whether justified or otherwise, were not seen by the public as competent.

Today, that third "P" - people - has been in large part rectified. The high-level signal that the Swinney-Forbes team sends is that the Government is now serious about the issues that really matter to people; the economy, health, education, transport, housing.

And make no mistake; from the perspective of Anas Sarwar’s opposition Labour Party, providing a credible alternative to Mr Swinney and his new Deputy, Kate Forbes is a world away from providing that alternative to Humza Yousaf and Patrick Harvie. Life is harder, now, for Mr Sarwar.

Nonetheless, as the remainder of the Cabinet and junior ministerial announcements filtered through during the course of Wednesday, Mr Sarwar will have breathed a sigh of relief. The compromise became clear; you can have Kate, but we want continuity too.

That lack of change brings the other two Ps - policy and priority - into ever sharper focus. The Swinney-Forbes Government must deliver, now. They must be the change, rejecting continuity through their actions rather than their words. If they fail to do so, Mr Sarwar will be ready.

This week, in amongst the hustle and bustle of the election and appointment of Mr Swinney and his Cabinet, his Government was given three hooks on which to peg that change. Considered together, these three are a perfect opportunity for juxtaposition between the government of last month and the government of today.

The first is the evidence given to Holyrood’s health committee by Dr Hilary Cass, former President of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and author of the review which has decimated the concept and practice of gender ideology-based care for children. The second is the forecast from accountancy major EY that Scotland’s economic growth will fall from its previous estimate - a sluggish 0.7 per cent - to a truly dismal 0.4%. And the third is from Propertymark, the association for residential letting agents, whose research has shown that no fewer than 100 % of landlords are more likely to increase rents during tenancies as a result of rent caps.

The Cass review has been a welcome intervention in the toxic debate over transgender rights. Focused on the rights of children, and the responsibilities we as adults have towards them, the review has ensured that English children will now be protected from gender-affirming care.

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We will, in future, look back on gender-affirming care as nothing short of state-sponsored experimentation on our nation’s children, primarily young girls. We will look back with utter shame that, when pubertal girls told the adults around them that they wanted to be boys, when in fact they were more likely to be either gay or anxious, or suffering from undiagnosed neurodiversity, we unquestioningly allowed them to "socially transition" or in some cases to take irreversible puberty-blocking medication.

This is not to say we should dismiss all children who present with gender dysphoria; some will be real cases, and it is critical for their future physical and mental health that they are on a pathway to transitioning. But not when they are children; not when their identity is fluid, and not when their prefrontal cortex remains many years away from development. The risks of transitioning children who are not transgender significantly outweighs the risk of not transitioning children who are, until they reach adulthood.

Mr Swinney should say so. He should acknowledge that this should never have been such a central priority of the government, that his party got the legislation wrong, and that he will be amending it both to protect children and to ensure the safety of women and the sanctity of womanhood.

With that deprioritisation can go a reprioritisation, of the economy. Scotland is emerging from a fairly dark political period in which the Government’s commitment to economic growth was in question. With a party in government - the Greens - which expressly opposed economic growth, and a general trend over many years of the SNP deprioritising the economy, we forgot the basics of how a successful country works.

None of the services we want as a society - hospitals, schools, roads, welfare - can be delivered without money, and money cannot be generated without a growing economy. Mr Swinney has already signalled that the economy will again be central, and of course Ms Forbes is running it.

The Herald: The Cass review was a helpful intervention in the transgender debateThe Cass review was a helpful intervention in the transgender debate (Image: PA)

Furthermore, there are three highly able ministers sitting underneath - Richard Lochhead, the business minister, Tom Arthur, minister for investment and the returning Ivan McKee, responsible for public finance. Their first job should be to take another look at income tax, specifically the Government’s propensity to tax for show, rather than taxing for dough, with a view to substantial reductions.

We know from forecasters - the Fraser of Allander Institute and the Scottish Fiscal Commission - that the latest round of tax increases will generate almost no additional revenue due to the behaviour change of people who live here, with an unknowable volume of investment sitting on the sidelines, wary of a hostile environment.

Speaking of a hostile environment, we also now know the impact of rent control in the private rented sector - an ideological policy built on opposition to profiting from private property, which has been a predictable but unmitigated disaster. Landlords are selling property into the owned sector, institutional investors are building in English cities where they can achieve a better return, landlords are understandably exploiting a loophole to jack up rents in between tenancies, and all of that in the round is reducing supply and increasing demand. As we should all remember from day one of high school economics, that means rents go up. Rent controls, simply, need to be scrapped.

This may all be immaterial. It may be that the next chapter of Scotland’s political story is already written; that the Swinney-Forbes Government cannot arrest the trend or reverse the momentum. Mr Sarwar may take Mr Swinney’s keys to Bute House.

However, good things come in threes, and the three Bute Housewarming gifts given by Dr Cass, EY and Propertymark are should be accepted with grateful thanks.