Comment

This must be end of the road for Wendy Alexander, her short reign as Scottish Labour leader is almost certainly over. Her credibility was damaged enough by the dodgy donations affair. But for parliamentary standards commissioner Dr Jim Dyer to refer her to the procurator fiscal's office for apparently breaking the law takes this controversy to a new level. It is the most extraordinary and dramatic development.

There we all were, waiting for the Electoral Commission to decide on that illegal donation to her leadership campaign, when suddenly out of leftfield comes this Exocet missile from the parliamentary authorities at Holyrood. Just consider the significance.

The commissioner believes Ms Alexander may have committed a criminal offence in failing to declare the contributions to a leadership campaign. If the fiscal agrees, the police will be called in to investigate.

It really couldn't be worse, and it appears Alexander has been sitting on it since she was informed of the referral by the commissioner's office last Friday. Why didn't she mention this devastating news in any of her media interviews? Did she think it might never come out?

This will be a torrid week as she decides whether to stay or go. On Wednesday the Electoral Commission, after an inexcusable delay, is expected to pass its verdict on the donations affair.

If it doesn't take a similar view of the matter's seriousness, it will be condemned for a whitewash by Labour's enemies in Holyrood. She is damned whatever it says. If only the commission had acted with the sense of urgency it demonstrated in the Peter Hain affair, then Alexander's position just might have been salvageable. But with the standards commissioner on her case, she has little chance of surviving the next few days.

Her allies have been insisting that a police investigation needn't require her resignation. That she could fight on and clear her name. But they are whistling in the wind. If she tries to cling on - after Peter Hain had established resignation as the honourable'' course - the press and the public will erupt in indignation. She said that to resign would sacrifice her reputation. But she would have no reputation left to defend.

Things were bad enough already The press were growing irritable and restless at the endless wait for the Electoral Commission to rule on the illegal donation. Politicians and hacks have been wandering the lobbies in frustration. Scottish politics needs to move on, but can't until this issue is resolved.

The parliamentary standards commissioner instructed her to register her campaign donations - the money raised for the leadership election that never happened. Labour had believed that, as long as they kept the donations under £1000, they would be allowed to keep the names secret. Commissioner Jim Dyer said no, so last week Wendy had to deliver names and packdrill.

Not that these would have come as any surprise to readers of this paper, having been published here first. However, the episode drew attention, once again, to the manner in which the Alexander campaign sought to get round the spirit if not the letter of the law on donations by getting benefactors like property developer Michael D Rutterford to donate £999, just under the £1000 threshold of public scrutiny. It just looks so devious.

Nor did she do herself any favours by attacking other politicians who have run in leadership campaigns. In an attempt to deflect public criticism over the Dyer ruling, team Wendy challenged senior figures in other parties by name to publish details of their own campaign spending.

At a time when all politicians are under unprecedented scrutiny, this was taken very badly. MSPs may knock lumps out of each other at Question Time, but Scottish politicians are all members of the same club, and they don't like it when someone transgresses the unwritten rules.

There had been a degree of sympathy building up for Wendy Alexander - dead woman walking - as she awaited the verdict of the electoral commission. But much of that has now evaporated. Wendy is now being seen as a liability, not just to Labour, but to Scottish politics as a whole. Time to put her out of her misery.