ED Miliband has shown some deft political footwork of late, championing the cause of ordinary people in hard times against the perceived profiteering of the energy giants and the pay-day loan industry, but there is no point in the Labour leader coming up with popular lines of attack externally if he cannot put his own house in order.

It must surely be obvious by now that the issues of trade union influence on the party, the allegations of attempts to rig candidate selection in Falkirk, and the wider tactics of the Unite union raise issues that are not going away.

He is doing himself, the UK party and the Scottish party no favours by his continued failure to deal decisively and transparently with the Falkirk crisis and the wider allegations about the way Unite operates.

Johann Lamont was meant to be a new kind of leader of the party in Scotland, elected to be more than just the leader of the Holyrood group of Labour MSPs. Perhaps, behind the scenes she has been kept in the loop, but that is not the impression given.

The convention that control over Westminster selection contests, even in Scotland where her writ is meant to run, has meant the National Executive Committee in London and Mr Miliband have been charged with sorting this mess out, and in this they have been found wanting.

The result is collateral damage to Ms Lamont. While the UK leadership has looked weak she has been left looking irrelevant, and now the eddies from the Falkirk crisis are lapping around her ankles.

How can she possibly remain silent when it turns out that one of the players heavily involved in the Falkirk selection was the chair of the Scottish Labour Party?

The email evidence appears damning. When not chairing the party, Jackson Cullinane's day job is as political officer for Unite in Scotland. An email from him to a counterpart at the union in London refers to "Karrie", presumably favoured candidate Karie Murphy, and efforts to recruit new Labour party members from the union's ranks, with the union writing the cheques.

That can be within party rules as a broad tactic to boost recruitment, but not if it is done to influence a selection process.

The email back from Unite's political co-ordinator Tom Warnett points out that the sign-up of party members via a cheque they did not themselves write can lead to "a lot of drop-off after the first year, so it's not ideal in the long term but should be okay for the selection."

Labour's initial investigation may have missed this apparent admission of rule-breaking or turned a blind eye. Without seeing the original report we have no way of telling, but even party stalwarts are calling for decisive action to end the agony by reopening the original inquiry.