Warmest congratulations to Kezia Dugdale, of Soapbox fame, and editor of this week's Scottish Roundup. She, along with one other, has been called to step into the breach created by the departure of Messrs. Lironi and Marr from the Labour PR team.

Kez and I go back some way - she was on a panel of judges gave Duncan Sagar and me a first place in a debate about the space programme, much to the chagrin of the St. Andrews speakers, who assumed first place would be theirs as one of their team was reading Astrophysics (Duncan and I went on to win the competition in question - the 2003 Aberdeen Intervarsity, in case you're wondering - though as Mark McDonald will confirm, that had more to do with Duncan than it had to do with me). Following that, she went to work for the Edinburgh University Students' Association back when it was a plaything of People & Planet under Will Garton and Steve Cockburn (both of whom at least had a personality, and steered sympathetic groups as opposed to letting themselves be steered by said groups), rather than a plaything of the Labour Party under the current incumbent who needs permission from John Smith House before he visits the little hacks' room. Anyway, I was on the SRC while she worked as EUSA's Welfare and Campaigns Adviser, and whenever she required a loudmouthed gobshite for this, that or the other, I was usually quite happy to help her out.

But back to the matter at hand, Kez has two advantages over the aforementioned Messrs. Lironi and Marr: firstly, Lord Foulkes is not likely to go to the press and tell the first journalist he can find that he thinks she's an idiot, as he employed her; and secondly, she is not given to drunken, sweary outbursts at posh social functions.

So despite our political differences, I wish her all the luck in the world. And I hope she won't take it the wrong way when I say that, if the track record of those who have gone before her is anything to go by, she might just need it...