Mike Small (Fife, The Guardian): Everybody's sorry these days. Des Brown. David Cairns. Big Gordon. Wendy's probably sorry but we've not heard from her (and none of the UK media news channels have mentioned her relationship to Douglas). Now even Douglas Alexander is ‘sorry' for the election disorganisation that effectively disenfranchised over 140,000 people. Alexander made his apology ahead of Prime Minister's Questions, where Tory leader David Cameron described the mishandling of the Scottish elections as a "scandal". Well it is a scandal, and it's crystal clear that Alexander should resign immediately.
At Westminster, the prime minister repeatedly stated - accurately - that the Gould report deliberately avoids apportioning blame. But this amiable Canadian, who was clearly up to the analytical job of figuring out what went wrong but not up to the job of delivering the results, has effectively let Labour off the hook. Without naming names Alexander is able to wriggle free. Remember "with rights come responsibilities?" Nah, neither do New Labour.
But if Ministers will once again escape public accountability for flagrant hopelessness, did any good come out of this report?
One potential positive is that it is now unclear whether London can convincingly hang on to control of organising elections north of the border. As the BBC's Brian Taylor writes:
The big battle? Should Holyrood be given control of Scottish Parliamentary elections? Gould said yes. Salmond says yes. The Lib Dems say yes. The Greens say yes. The Tories say maybe, but it's not the big priority. And Labour? The early steer was that UK Ministers might accept that administrative control could be shifted to Holyrood. Now they say no.
They haven't really grasped that the games a bogey. Much of their politicking and manoeuvring is now transparent and, though technically they can retain control, with every petty act they lose further credibility.
So does the democratic system. Here's a completely independent judge who has come in and written a damning report. Mr Gould, the former assistant chief electoral officer of Canada, said that in the planning process, the Scotland Office and the then Labour/Liberal Democrat Scottish Government were frequently focused on "partisan political interests". That nobody will be held to account for this is astonishing. No one can complain then next time there's a low turn out or a politicians faced with a cynical 16 year old.
The real question is what actual impact did all this have on the result? We'll never know - but I suspect we'll find out next time.
