Does HP7 have its Rufus Scrimgeour?

Possibly. It's recently been announced in an interview by a British newspaper called The Independent that actor Davey Jones himself, Bill Nighy, will be (finally) stepping into the Harry Potter universe for it's seventh and final installment(s). Nighy is clearly excited to be making an appearance as he more than once joked that he was:

"the only British actor who hasn't been in Harry Potter".

It seems the entire intertubes are specuating that he will be playing ::SPOILER:: the new minister of magic Rufus Scrimgeour, a stern ex-Auror brought in as minister after Fudge's failure mounted too high. Some sites are even going as far as saying that Nighy will definitely be taking on the role. While that is certainly a possibility, they may be jumping the gun a little bit.

While that casting in my mind would be perfect, I find it hard to believe that David Yates could write Scrimgeour completely out of The Half-Blood Prince, in which Scrimgeour appears within the first 20 pages, and plays a pretty serious role throughout. If that is the case and Scrimgeour will not appear in HBP, coupled with the mounting events from The Order of the Phoenix book that are being pushed into the 6th movie, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is sounding more and more like Harry Potter 5.5 rather than HP6.

This idea isn't something I'm wholly opposed to as lots of key elements of 5 were left out that resonate through the rest of the books, but I will always ask just why it wasn't done right the first time. The longer the book should mean a longer movie, right? But with 5 being the longest book and shortest movie, that's clearly not the trend that's been followed.

In any event, Bill Nighy appearing in any movie, let alone Harry Potter give me chills at the prospect of something so awesome. The Harry Potter Lexicon has a nice picture to show just how well Bill will fit the roll.