Expert view: Does Labour have anyone who can equal Alex Salmond?

Jun 29 2008 By John Curtice, Professor Of Politics At Strathclyde University

LOSING a leader in these kind of circumstances is always going to be a problem.

It raises a couple of questions - is there a successor capable of doing the job more effectively and what direction might that leader take the party?

The simplest way of posing the dilemma is: Who is there that can equal Alex Salmond?

He is a triple-A class, charismatic politician, and is there anybody who can take the fight to him effectively?

The party can be reinvigorated, but it will be a tough job.

Combined with MP David Marshall's resignation, this is a fair old crisis - having to fight a Westminster by-election in circumstances of an unpopular Labour Government in the middle of or immediately after a leadership election.

There are four likely contenders - deputy Cathy Jamieson, Margaret Curran, Andy Kerr and Iain Gray.

All may score better than Wendy for shortterm political nous but whether they score as highly in terms of longterm strategic direction and ability to rethink ideas is debatable.

Everybody agrees that Wendy is very clever and none of the others are in the same league.

But that's not the only quality needed in politics, as Wendy's case demonstrates.

The other thing none of them necessarily have is high political visibility. Can they make an impression on the public?

The question will be how far the person will do things differently from Westminster, how far do they want to say: "We'll put Scotland's interests first?"

Or will they go back to saying: "Vote for us for a lovely relationship with Westminster?"

If Wendy wasn't being criticised for other reasons she could have decided to sit out this bout because it's not entirely clear the votes are there to get her out of this.

Other problems are her bad First Minister's Questions performances and the referendum debacle.

Her big mistake when the donation story appeared was not putting everything in the public domain.

Once a scandal starts and a politician doesn't come clean straight away, it will come out.