What’s at stake in Scotland

Perhaps, more extraordinary than anything going on south of the border with donor-gate is the situation in Scotland. When it was revealed on Friday that Wendy Alexander had sent a letter to the Jersey businessmen Paul Green thanking him for his donation, which he was unable to make under electoral law and which Alexander had previously denied knowledge of, it seemed inevitable that she would have to go. Alexander clung on, though. Then, came yesterday’s suggestion that her office might have had doubts about Green’s eligibility to donate far earlier than previously thought. But Alexander came out fighting. Even, though, her argument that she did nothing wrong intentionally seems rather weak, as Ben Brogan points out.

The explanation for Alexander’s defiance appears to be that Downing Street is determined for the Prime Minister’s protégé to hang in there. The reporting from Scotland this morning is that there is fear in Labour circles of a domino