Nice N Sleazy Does It Every Time

As the sleaze continues to ooze out of the Unionist power centres panic is setting in, and the media classes are beginning to smell blood. The ineffectual Wendy Alexander has made such a botch of the post-McConnell Scottish Labour opposition that rats are beginning to sink the ship.It looks as if even Labours media lapdog, the ultra loyal Daily Record patience is beginning to wane in its admiration for the Big W? *

Info from AllMediaScotland and last nights Newsnight suggests mibbes aye...

"BBC Newsnight Scotland last night wheeled on the big guns - Magnus Linklater, Scottish editor of The Times, and Douglas Fraser, Scottish political editor of The Herald - to mull over the media’s growing impatience with the news vacuum being created as a decision is awaited from the Electoral Commission on the ‘dodgy donation’ to Wendy Alexander’s Scottish Labour Party leadership campaign.

Meanwhile, the Scottish Labour hierarchy has been embarking on a charm offensive with Scottish journalists, at pains to point out that Wendy has the full backing of all her fellow Labour MSPs - aimed at dampening down rising speculation that former Health Minister, Andy Kerr, is preparing to take over as leader should she stand down."

The consensus was that there are rumblngs and disquiet about the Constitutional Convention and 'Devolutin Max' and - laughably - the notion that Alexander is 'a closet nat'.

"However, as Andy Nicoll, the political editor of The Scottish Sun, succinctly told Newsnight Scotland, the wooing of the media by Wendy’s supporters had merely produced “cack-handed media management”.

In the Daily Telegraph, Kate Devlin, its Scottish political correspondent, has stressed the importance of the Daily Record appearing to turn against Alexander, evidenced by "an excoriating editorial comment” on Monday. Pointed out Kate: “It is the loss of support from Scotland’s most stridently Labour newspaper that will concern the leadership.” In its editorial, the Daily Record declared: “No one could have predicted how far fortunes would slump in just nine months. And they only have themselves to blame. They have made too many mistakes”, adding: “If Alexander can’t even get them back to where they were less than a year ago, there is simply no hope she will ever become First Minister.”

With Hain gone now Conway away the culture of cosy cronyism that has protected the Alexander Siblings may be coming to a close.

Go here and open the BBC player to look up Newsnight Scotland and watch last nights show.

* for overeseas visitors the record not displaying blind devotion to Labour is a media event in itself.