Other than her closest political and personal pals, it is not unfair to Wendy Alexander to say that the people who will really miss her are Alex Salmond and the Scottish National Party.

Ms Alexander's 9 months in charge of Scottish Labour at Holyrood have been a gift for the Nationalists as she lurched from crisis to drama and back to crisis. It is simply not true to say, as one pundit averred yesterday, that she failed because the Scottish political village could not cope with a bright, feisty woman.

The real reason she fell from grace was that Ms Alexander wasn't very good at her job and failed to realise that the rules, on donations and other things, which governed the behaviour and actions of all other politicians also applied to her.

As this newspaper said on Saturday, it is true that there has been more than a whiff of a plot by the Nationalists against Ms Alexander on the issue of her leadership campaign finances. But that does not alter the fact that it was her own decision not to voluntarily register these campaign donations. That she received advice that she did not have to register the donations is beside the point. She should still have registered them.

But this episode exemplifies Ms Alexander's greatest failing. Although she is, and always has been, a supremely intelligent person, bursting with ideas and energy - as a politician she has too often exhibited a lack of common sense.

For example, if she had had common sense or been the least bit street-wise she would never have tried to claim, as she did, that an Electoral Commission inquiry into an illegal donation to her campaign had exonerated her. It had not. The commission gave her its version of the age-old Scottish “not proven” verdict and by trying to pretend that it was a “not guilty” she succeeded only in irritating and infuriating her opponents, both internal and external.

The result was that the SNP, in particular, decided to harry her over the whole issue of her campaign finance. However, the SNP did not want her dead and buried. Given her deep unpopularity on the streets of Scotland, she was of more benefit to the Nationalists politically wounded but still alive.

Ms Alexander's lack of judgment and political nous also extended to policy issues. Her sudden backing for an early referendum on independence appeared to be based on a whim and not on any thought-out strategy. It put her at odds with party policy and provoked such internal turmoil in Scottish Labour ranks that, after successive U-turns in a matter of days, no-one is quite clear yet where the party stands on the

issue.

But it spoke to an impetuosity in Ms Alexander that was utterly dangerous and which, in time, would have proved fatal if left unchecked. Ms Alexander appeared not to care one whit what her party at Holyrood and farther afield appeared to think about her sudden volte-face. The attitude seemed to be: “I am leader and you will do

as I say.”

Now Scottish Labour attempts to move on from the Alexander debacle, although the contest to come is unlikely to set the Scottish political firmament alight. Scottish Labour's relations with London, on policy and party structures, have to be a central part of that campaign but, above all, the Scottish Labour Party has to use this contest to decide what it is for.

Is it to be the party of the Union with the rest of the United Kingdom or isn't it? And if it is, how can it even contemplate supporting a referendum that could result in the end of that very Union.

Whoever wins the contest faces a massive task because he or she must realise that the party is in such a bad state in terms or organisation, finance and reputation that it has little or no chance, from this vantage point, of winning in 2011.

Indeed, as one cynic said yesterday: “Even Nelson Mandela could not win the next Scottish election for Scottish Labour.”

The real and only rational target for a comeback must be the election after that in 2015. Accepting that reality will be the first step towards rehabilitation.

To that end, the party should not rush this leadership election. There is talk that the process will be triggered when its executive procedures committee meets on Friday.

That would be foolish. Labour activists in Scotland, having made a mistake with Ms Alexander, need to take a long look over the summer at who should succeed her.

Indeed, there are good grounds for saying that it should at least be postponed until the Westminster

by-election for the Glasgow East constituency, probably on July 24,

is out of the way.

To do otherwise would mean that Labour would go into that by-election troubled by the kind of division that leadership contests often cause. Glasgow East will be difficult enough for Labour without that.

Times Recommends

• Brown gambles it all on rescue plan
• Motherhood boosts female brain power
• That's no old FT, that's my naked wife