Leadership Saturday: It remains to be seen just how easy it is being Gray

Iain Gray is now the Leader of the Scottish Opposition, with Cathy Jamieson coming second and Andy Kerr third. The full breakdown of results hasn't yet been published and it will be interesting to see how the individual blocs in the Electoral College voted.

This is a mistake. At a time when the Labour Government at Westminster is disintegrating more dramatically than anything Labour at Holyrood has ever been able to muster, the last thing Labour at Holyrood needed was to hitch themselves to the Westminster wagons, which are in the process of plunging into a rather deep canyon. And Gray is the closest of the candidates to Downing Street, make no mistake - even if he tried to avoid any form of public support from the likes of Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling... a sort of endorsement that dare not speak its name. The man has had a charisma bypass, is a rubbish communicator if that interview on Newsnight Scotland is anything to go by, and displayed tactical insanity in his decision to abstain on the Budget as Shadow Finance Secretary. And he's a mark of continuity within the party: from Alexander to Gray, the same approach and so with that the inability to reform the party where it counts. I can only imagine that champagne is being supped in Bute House right now.

Of course, the choice wasn't great - this is borne out by the fact that no candidate managed to win outright on the first vote. Cathy Jamieson had re-re-positioned herself on the party's Left, annoying the 'reformist' wing but still not winning back the trust of the left-wingers she deserted as a Minister. Nevertheless, that ticket would have probably given the activists a boost and might have won a few disaffected voters back. Andy Kerr triggered a turf war between MPs and MSPs, and would have undoubtedly caused a full-on civil war within Scottish Labour, but once the fog had cleared, the dust had settled, Labour had lost a General Election and Brown had found himself out on his ear, Kerr would have been the last man standing, able to implement his agenda and make changes to the Party which might have made them a more effective unit, being able to write their own manifesto without clearing it with the UK party first, for the 2011 Election.

But Gray, despite seeking to "close the 2007 manifesto" does not appear to offer substantive changes from the status quo, and will continue the Labour line of defaulting to blaming the SNP automatically for any rows or threats emanating from Whitehall rather than trying to produce something more concilliatory. No, Gray is Labour's man in Scotland, not Scotland's man in Labour. And the new Leader of the Opposition is not helped by a YouGov poll which found that just 3% of respondents saw him as the best potential First Minister. Even if all those who named a Labour candidate were to rally round him, he would have a personal support level of just 12%.

Meanwhile, Johann Lamont is now Deputy Leader. As an outsider to the Labour process, I'm afraid I must confess that I do not know anything about what she offered, other than spite towards the SNP. Clearly she is going to be the 'attack dog' (as Vice-Presidential candidates are meant to be) of the ticket but Labour's relentless negativity cost them first place in the Scottish Parliament, in local Councils, in Crewe & Nantwich and Glasgow East. Labour needs to muzzle its attack dogs, not elevate them to the Deputy Leadership; it needs to produce new, positive polices, not the same old mince that has seen its popularity rightly plunge.

But I do not believe that Labour's new ticket is aware of that.