31/01/2008

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.

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.”

* Send your Scottish media news and gossip, in the strictest confidence, to  info@allmediascotland.com