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With three candidates now announced, the race to become the next Scottish Labour leader is beginning to resemble the hit TV-show The Apprentice: We’ve got the confident front-runner – Jim Murphy MP, the left-field choice – Neil Findlay MSP, and the quiet candidate coming up on the outside – Sarah Boyack MSP. What’s more, over the next eight weeks we can certainly expect clashing egos, a few whacky ideas and a frank appraisal of each candidate’s past performance.

This Apprentice-style show-down was set in motion last Saturday when Johann Lamont MSP – prompted by Ed Miliband’s decision to say ‘you’re fired’ to Labour’s Scottish General Secretary Ian Price – resigned as Scottish Labour leader. Tales of a rift between Lamont and Miliband may have dominated the weekend papers, but ultimately it was Johann’s poor performance which made her position untenable.

More column-inches were dedicated to the Pollok MSP following her departure than at any point during her three-year stint as leader - she was little match for Salmond (whose put-downs certainly rival Alan Sugar’s best) and she was completely over-shadowed by her Labour colleagues during the proverbial boardroom bust-ups with the SNP over independence.

But, unlike The Apprentice, the task ahead for Murphy, Findlay and Boyack isn’t flogging overpriced candles to passers-by; these candidates are at the first stage of a long application process to be First Minister. So what do they need to do to revive Scottish Labour’s chances?

Scottish Labour’s current mess is a hangover from the party’s response to defeat at the last Holyrood election. In 2011 Scottish Labour’s manifesto, in many areas at least, was a pale imitation of the SNP’s – a council tax freeze for two years rather than five, an 80% 2020 renewables target rather than 100%. And having failed to set out a more ambitious vision for Scotland, Scottish Labour got hammered on 5 May 2011.

During the leadership contest which followed a few months later, Lamont’s main rival Ken Macintosh MSP (incidentally a keen ally of Jim Murphy) won the vote of party members but did not receive enough support from trade unions and fellow Labour parliamentarians to clench overall victory. Against the better judgement of their membership, Scottish Labour’s answer to comprehensive rejection by the Scottish electorate was to rearrange, rather than replace, the faces at the top - deputy leader Lamont became leader and leader Iain Gray eventually became finance spokesperson.

Given the current crop of leadership hopefuls, a ‘new’ face is guaranteed to lead the party. But the underlying point remains - with the Smith Commission well underway and Sturgeon ready to take the reins as First Minister, it is not enough for Scottish Labour to again follow the political agenda of others. This leadership contest must be the beginning of an attempt by the party to shape the political discourse and articulate a more ambitious vision for Scotland.

For whoever takes over in December this won’t be an easy task, but a few confident voices, radical ideas and a frank appraisal of the Scottish electorate’s expectations of devolution will definitely be required. For the sake of Scottish democracy, let’s hope Scottish Labour can deliver that over the next eight weeks.