Peter Mandelson's unexpected return to a senior post in a Labour government will surprise and possibly alarm Alex Salmond, the leader of the SNP.
Salmond is about to fight another byelection in a Labour stronghold, in Glenrothes, next to Gordon Brown's home seat, and has admitted to the Guardian he admires the new business secretary's political skills.
Immediately after his party won their stunning victory in Glasgow East in July, overturning a 13,500-vote Labour majority, Salmond suggested that Mandelson and Alastair Campbell were the only two senior Labour figures that he feared.
He said Labour's campaign team, headed by Frank Roy, the Labour whip, and David Cairns, then the Scotland Office minister, had been consistently outflanked and out-thought by the SNP during the byelection.
Roy and Cairns were "idiots" for falling for SNP campaign ploys, Salmond said.
He said scornfully: "Once upon a time, the Labour party had Campbell and Mandelson running their campaigns; now they've David Cairns and Frank Roy. Honestly. I can't believe they fell for it."
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