Disaster for Labour in Scotland

Jim Murphy vowed to start the Labour "fightback" in Scotland but can they recover?

This is turning into not just a bad night, not just a terrible night, but an absolute out-and-out disaster that threatens the existence of the Labour Party in Scotland.

Jim Murphy has just vowed to stay on as the Scottish Labour leader to start the "fightback". But Labour in Scotland has promised before to listen and learn after 2007 and 2011 when they lost in the Holyrood Parliament in Scotland. Could they recover?

With hardly an MP, and activists tired and defeated, Scottish Labour may not just need to lick its wounds and follow through that cliche of "learning the lessons". They need something else, more drastic, much, much, more drastic.

And there is very little comfort for the Labour Party elsewhere.

If anything, the emerging evidence is that the night looks worse for them than our exit poll predicted five hours ago. Tessa Jowell has said it is not yet the moment to talk about a new leader for the Labour Party. But there are reports that there will be demands for Ed Miliband to go as soon as later on Friday.

Labour candidate John Mann, shall we say a critical friend of his own party, has said the leadership was warned repeatedly about what might happen. A source in the Labour Party has just texted me to say, "the leadership contest starts tomorrow".

Another Labour source has told me, "they want Ed M gone by Monday and a blood-letting leadership battle asap".