SO, Douglas Alexander wishes to stand for the Labour Party’s Scottish branch in the East Lothian constituency at the next UK General Election?

Presumably he has recognised he has negligible chance of regaining from Mhairi Black the seat he previously occupied and has decided to jump ship to to an area on the other side of the country with which he has no obvious connections other than an apparently complicit local party organisation.

READ MORE: Douglas Alexander to run for election in key Labour target seat

It is exactly this kind of arrogant assumption of entitlement that has reduced the Labour Party’s one-time hegemony in Scotland to its current rump condition. Why on earth the people of East Lothian would wish to have the man who deservedly earned the sobriquet of “La Petite Verde” during his previous tenure on the green benches of Westminster is anyone’s guess.

I for one will now make a point of giving support to Kenny MacAskill to retain his seat there and prevent Mr Alexander from deceiving East Lothian’s electorate into thinking he has interests other than his own at heart.

Peter Wilson
Edinburgh