Labour MPs begin the post-mortem

I understand Alistair Darling was the star turn for Scotland at the parliamentary Labour party meeting, just finished.

The former chancellor dismantled the Scottish Labour defence, deployed since last Friday, that the SNP majority was due to a mass switch of Lib Dem voters to the nationalists.

That analysis is far too simplistic, said Darling, the party had to recognise that it was hemorrhaging some of its core, working-class vote to the SNP. That has been happening steadily since 1999.

The question is what to do about that? Ed Miliband, I understand, did not address the issue directly but rather blamed Labour's Scottish debacle on organisational failure, which he vowed would not happen again.

He did, however, acknowledge that Labour had not offered the Scottish people a vision to match the SNP's optimism.

Miliband is in charge of a review to find out why the Scottish party, with an uncharismatic leader and a weak message, did not perform at the polls. I hope he reads the result of the inquiry closely.