Playing for time ...

All quiet from the New Labour bunker today - no fresh revelations in the press, but a deafening silence from Wendy's camp as Team Alexander tries to work out a damage limitation strategy. Jackie Baillie was wheeled out to trot out the official line, but I was disgusted to hear Ms Baillie - a politician who I genuinely respected - insinuate that the campaign against Wendy Alexander is gender based! Quite simply, that's nonsense and it stinks - Ms Baillie should be ashamed of herself for her utterances do her, or her gender, no credit. I've always found those who play the gender card - or the race card, come to that - have little else of a positive nature to offer. Too often it's a sign of desperation, the last roll of the dice, and it certainly seems so in this particular case.
Wendy's current travails are of her own making - and there really is only one way out and that is resignation. Having studied Wendy's unusually brief public statement on the affair, the key word in her defence is 'intentional'. Unfortunately, intentional or otherwise, Wendy is guilty of breaking the law. How this could happen when she was surrounded by some of the West of Scotland's most experienced politicians is mystifying, but it's a fact. There are suggestions that she will attempt to buy more time by awaiting the outcome of Electoral and Police inquiries, in the hope that the furore over the cash donations will diminish and so take the pressure off her besieged Westminster colleagues. It's said that Gordon Brown himself has urged her to tough it out.
However if Wendy Alexander really cares about the future of the Labour Party she professes to love, and if she wishes to retain any shred of honour or credibility at all - she must go now. And I say that not because she's a woman, but because she's a public figure who was caught and has admitted to breaking the law.
Those senior colleagues who handled her campaign - whether inept, incompetent 'numpties' or devious, arrogant crooks - should also be seriously considering their positions - not only have their actions greviously undermined democracy but they've also helped further the cause of independence much more effectively than Salmond could ever do. Well done Comrades!