Bold and confident it certainly is. But pundits looking at Ewart Brown’s new Cabinet will have noticed it has elements of incongruity as well as stability.

While the new Premier played safe by re-appointing his deputy Paula Cox as Finance Minister, the new Ministry of Social Rehabilitation requires a massive, time-sapping reorganisation of portfolios.

And while he praised the new Ministry’s head Dale Butler as someone with boundless energy, Dr. Brown may now wonder whether he got it right given Mr. Butler’s rather frank expression that he would have preferred another post — or even staying put.

To be sure, Mr. Butler has a proven record of meeting the disillusioned wallsitters in his own patch in Warwick.

But if Dr. Brown was determined to put Randy Horton in Education he might have been better to put Neletha Butterfield in the Social Rehabilitation role given her long record of helping society’s less fortunate.

One can see the temptation for dropping underperforming Michael Scott out of Telecommunications and E Commerce — but the pairing of that with Environment looks bizarre.

It would have been a better fit with Education given the need to get the Island’s youngsters technologically savvy and paired up with lucrative jobs.

But few ever really fancy the techie brief so Randy Horton — with favours owed to him after his career-risking support for Dr. Brown — could afford to name his dream job — Education paired with Sport.

Stability must have been the reason for putting Nelson Bascome back in at Health — a post he held for five years before Mr. Scott replaced Jennifer Smith.

But Ministers normally get a change after a long stint in one post in an effort to bring new ideas. Putting him back there — admittedly after a three-year break — looks unimaginative.

Having Senator Burch stick with housing made sense — given the time he has invested in improving the Island’s housing stock. But pairing that with Public Safety looks extremely odd.

Dennis Lister in at Works and Engineering looks like a fairly obvious payback for one of Dr. Brown’s biggest backbench supporters.

But thankfully there was less in the way of cronyism than might have been expected for someone with favours to pay off after a hard-fought campaign.

Cabinets are usually are case of the old adage — keep your friends close and your enemies even closer.

But beyond keeping Neletha Butterfield and David Burch there was little attempt to buy peace with the loyalist faction which had supported Jennifer Smith and Alex Scott.

It marked a contrast to the former Cabinet of Mr. Scott who, despite pledging to reduce numbers, had actually increased it to 13 as he felt obliged to bring in more members of the Brown wing which were circling for his blood.

Thus Wayne Perinchief was given the newly-created Ministry for National Drug Control which has lasted less than a year. Dr. Brown’s Cabinet is back down to 11 while the Senate has a fresh new look which doesn’t really seem to necessarily revolve around factions.

Kim Wilson and Wayne Caines bring some legal acumen while nobody expected 25-year-old virtual unknown Davida Morris to enter public life through the Upper Chamber.

Dr. Brown said the measure of his Cabinet will be hard work and for the moment the new team will get public backing.

However as one former Cabinet minister wryly told The Royal Gazette recently — any new appointment gets a huge amount of support initially, however ill-advised.

But six months down the line the situation can change wildly.

Perhaps the best test will be to see what the public makes of the team next Spring.

And certainly from watching the body language yesterday it remains to be seen if a particularly glum-faced Paula Cox will stick it out, despite her recent promotion to Deputy Premier.

When you have an en masse resignation from the Senate as was seen with the departures of Larry Mussenden, Raymond Tannock, Neville Tyrell and Walter Roban it doesn’t bode well for lasting peace.

The talk after Friday’s bloodletting might have been all about unity. But it begs the question — on whose terms?