Alexander quits: Reaction in quotes

Wendy Alexander has resigned as leader of the Scottish Labour Party after breaking parliamentary rules on donations. Here is some reaction to her announcement from key figures.

It is with deep regret that we accept the resignation of Wendy Alexander as the leader of the Labour group in the Scottish Parliament.

Ever since this process began, anybody who knows Wendy Alexander has not for one minute questioned her integrity, as is evident today.

With this decision she has put the Scottish Parliament and the Labour party above her own personal interests.

I want to thank Wendy Alexander, not just for her work in rebuilding the Scottish Labour Party since the last elections but for her commitment to devolution and her part in establishing the Scottish Parliament.

Her dedication to social justice can never be doubted and her contribution - which has been outstanding over the years - will be greatly missed.

This has been a very tough decision in very difficult circumstances and I understand Wendy's characteristic instinct to put the Labour Party interests first.

She is a woman of outstanding talent and as a family we care about her very much.

I am sad that Wendy has felt that she has had to step down but I know that she will continue to be, as she has always been, a strong champion for Labour, for Scotland, and above all for women.

Like many other people who know Wendy Alexander, first of all I'm very sad to see that a woman of immense talent and I have to say of the utmost integrity has been essentially driven out of her position, and driven out of her position by a combination of factors.

At least one of them has been undoubtedly a very personalised vendetta that has been conducted against her over a concentrated period of time.

I think it's very sad, both personally for Wendy but also for Scotland.

She was and is one of the outstanding political thinkers of her generation.

I thought she showed really good leadership. Her speeches and her ideas have helped shape policy in Scotland, and indeed have shaped it across the political parties.

This has obviously been a difficult decision for Wendy Alexander, and resignation offers her the opportunity to move on.

While Wendy Alexander has been the author of own misfortune, there can be no doubt that the information on her illegal campaign donation could only have come from within the inner circles of the Labour Party.

For months, there has been an unanswered question in Scottish politics - who within Scottish Labour leaked the information which provoked the serious investigation, culminating in Wendy Alexander�s resignation?

As Labour face another leadership trauma, her likely successors would do well to watch each other as well as their political opponents.

Decay from within is characteristic of the decline of the New Labour project, and Wendy Alexander�s resignation is a symptom of this wider malaise.

Clearly Wendy Alexander thought long and hard before making this decision but there is no doubt that the challenges facing Labour throughout the UK are awesome.

She evidently feels that it is time for somebody else to lead the Labour Party in Scotland.

This resignation is a further body blow for Gordon Brown and Labour, as they lurch from one crisis to another.

Only the Scottish Conservatives offer a credible opposition to the SNP in Scotland.

On a personal level, we hope that, away from the stresses and strains of leadership, Wendy Alexander can find time and peace for herself and her family.

It's a very sad day for Wendy Alexander but I think she did do the right thing.

The issue [of her campaign donations] had not gone away throughout the whole of her time as Scottish Labour leader and if that becomes the story then you can't get on with the politics.

It's a really strong, sad additional blow for Labour. They lost power as the dominant party in Scotland and went into opposition a year ago.

They've had terrible local elections across England and Wales, they've come fifth in the latest UK election, they're just about to face we gather another by-election in Scotland.

The Labour Party are in difficulty north and south of the border, and this will not help them.

This has been an exceptionally difficult time for Wendy Alexander, and Scottish Labour as a whole is still struggling to adapt to its place in opposition.

Personally, I wish her the very best for the future. She has a lot still to offer Scottish politics, and I hope very much that she will continue to play a leading role in our Parliament.

She is a huge talent, bubbling with ideas, and I'm sure she'll be back on the front line of politics at some stage.

The real problem is Wendy Alexander's leadership more broadly was not much of a success.

Her performances in First Minister's Questions against the First Minister Alex Salmond were widely criticised for being rather weak.

Secondly, her attempt to push the Labour Party where it is in a position where it said it wanted a referendum on independence and it wanted a referendum quickly, contradicting Gordon Brown's position, that undoubtedly weakened her position.

Thirdly, in truth the lesson of this story is that Wendy Alexander actually mismanaged dealing with the problem of her leadership finance campaign once the story first emerged.

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