Jim Wallace: It's hard to win when chaos and confusion reign at Labour HQ

Whenever, as a minister in the Scottish Executive, my wife thought I was burning the candle at both ends, she had two ripostes to encourage a proper sense of perspective. She would remind me that 'graveyards are full of indispensable people' or she would speculate that, should I die, tributes would last for a day, but by the time friends and colleagues gathered in Orkney's St Magnus Cathedral for my funeral, the main buzz of conversation would be about the possible byelection candidates. Her speculation has been well borne out by the column inches devoted to the political implications of the byelection now pending, following the death of Glenrothes MP John MacDougall, after a long battle against mesothelioma, and to which, mea culpa, I am now adding. I can't claim to have known John MacDougall well. He entered the Commons at... [read full story]