Several big boys did it and ran away. Douglas Alexander, the Scottish Secretary, adopted a variation on the theme that someone else is always to blame when explaining to MPs yesterday the background to the shambles that marred last Thursday's Holyrood poll. Mr Alexander was at pains to point out to MPs that three of the four main parties north of the border (Labour, the SNP and the Liberal Democrats) favoured using a single ballot paper for the Scottish parliamentary elections. The Conservatives did not respond to the consultation.

The upshot was that the constituency and regional list votes were combined in one ballot paper but the order was reversed compared to previous elections. Asking the public to vote in the council elections at the same time added to the confusion. Consequently, the votes of some 100,000 people were rejected and they were disenfranchised, joining those who had been denied their say because postal ballots had not arrived in time. To cap it all, a new system of electronic voting was used to deliver results in both the Holyrood and council polls promptly. It, too, suffered glitches and the count was suspended in Aberdeen, Argyll and Bute, Eastwood, Edinburgh, Livingston and Linlithgow, Perth and Tayside North, Strathkelvin and Bearsden. It is clear that too much change on too many fronts was attempted in too tight a timescale. These elections were an accident waiting to happen. No matter how hard Mr Alexander sought to apportion blame on the widest front, that fact cannot be avoided. It is right and proper that people want to know what went wrong and why. The Scottish Secretary continues to believe that the Electoral Commission, which routinely reviews elections, is the right body to find the answers.

He is mistaken, on two fronts. First, the depth and extent of the problems are such that they merit an independent inquiry in their own right, not an exercise that bolts them on to a review that would have taken place anyway. Secondly, the Electoral Commission is open to charges that it is compromised in what should be the key aspect of this inquiry as, among its duties, it is required to set the standards for running elections. It should not be put in a position that, potentially, involves asking hard questions of itself. Mr Alexander implied yesterday that, should the results of the review be unsatisfactory, there could be further investigation. What would constitute unsatisfactory? On whose terms? It is an unsatisfac- tory aspect of the past few days that, although there appeared to be agreement about the new voting system, no-one will take responsibility for what went so horribly wrong. Is it too much to hope that might change soon, starting with the Scottish Secretary?