'Not an easy inbox' for new Scottish Labour leader

Published 9 hours ago There's an old joke involving someone asking for directions, and the reply comes: "Well, if I were you, I wouldn't start from here."

And that's probably the (unhelpful) advice a lot of people would give the next Scottish Labour leader.

It's a job that will go to one of two MSPs this weekend - Michael Marra or Joe Fagan.

The victor will inherit a party that had a historically bad result in May's Scottish Parliament election. They will lead a group of just 17 MSPs.

That makes them the joint second largest party at Holyrood, tied with Reform UK, but there remains a gulf between Labour and their SNP rivals.

Anas Sarwar fell well short of his goal to become First Minister of Scotland, and swapped Holyrood for the House of Lords shortly afterwards.

It has been revealed during the contest to find Sarwar's successor that the party's membership has slumped to around 11,000.

So what are the challenges facing the next leader? And what – if anything – can they do to get the Scottish Labour show back on the road?

We asked the pollster Mark Diffley to spell out some of the issues that Marra or Fagan will have to tackle.

He didn't mince his words: "The party has become a bit of an irrelevance, and I think that is the biggest hurdle that they face going forward.

"The vast majority of people don't really know either of the candidates and, worryingly for them, don't know that the contest is going on".

Diffley spells out three priorities: become relevant, develop a relationship with the prime minister (who he says is currently popular in Scotland) and spell out appealing policies.

One senior party insider agreed with much of Mark Diffley's analysis, warning "it's not an easy inbox".

They told me there's a need to change approach, and Labour might look to learn from a rival party – the Scottish Greens.