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LABOUR leader Ed Miliband will call the shots in the party's Scottish shake-up, ordered after last week's election humiliation.

Miliband will not personally lead the in-depth review but he will approve the panel appointed to plot Labour's comeback from the political wilderness.

He will also set their remit and have the final say on whether to implement their recommendations.

Labour know their decision not to hand full control of the review process to MSPs and Scots party officials will earn derision from the rampant SNP.

But a senior source said last night: "The idea this is a Holyrood problem is for the birds. The group of MSPs do not have the capacity to regenerate themselves."

And a Scots Labour insider confirmed: "Ed wants to be in on this."

Miliband did not hide his frustration during an interview on the BBC's Andrew Marr show yesterday.

He said Labour suffered "a very very bad result" and insisted the party had "got to learn the deep lessons from that result".

He added: "I think that there was a context in this election where you had two parties, Labour and the SNP, fighting essentially against the Tory Government in London.

"We did not sufficiently set out a compelling and clear alternative to what Alex Salmond is proposing for the future of Scotland."

Jim Murphy, the East Renfrewshire MP and shadow defence secretary, was yesterday named as one possible review chief.

He helped Ken Macintosh hold Eastwood against the odds and played a key role in Scottish Labour's successful UK election campaign last year.

But the role of the UK party in the review has angered a section of the Scots party. One defeated MSP said: "We don't really need to bother with a review, it's obvious what went wrong.

"We need to be a federal party, run from Scotland. We need to keep Ed Miliband out of it.

"Scots don't take kindly to being run from Westminster."

Defeated Scots leader Iain Gray will convene a meeting of the party's 37 MSPs at Labour HQ in Glasgow today. They will discuss what they believe the review should consider.

And despite the dissent about Miliband's involvement, there is agreement throughout Labour that the review must not pull its punches.

It is expected to consider new ways of selecting candidates, possibly giving members of the public a say in US-style primaries.

The backroom staff who presided over the party's worse defeat in 80 years will also come under scrutiny.

And Scottish Labour's policies will come under the microscope.

Many pledges, such as ensuring convicted knife thugs were jailed, went down well among traditional Labour voters.

But they proved a turn-off to fed-up Lib Dems and others looking to switch their support.

Finally, Labour are expected to look at sweeping organisational changes.

Despite the UK party's determination to call the shots in the review, they will consider calls to make the Scots party more independent of London.

A source said: "We need to look at the 'Scottishness' of the party."

Today's meeting at Labour's John Smith House HQ is the first time the new intake of MSPs have met since the crushing election defeat.

Many are relative unknowns, having won their seats on the regional lists which compensate parties with fewer constituencies.

Of the old guard who remain, health spokeswoman Jackie Baillie has emerged as a possible replacement for Gray when he steps down.

Macintosh, interviewed on TV yesterday, refused to rule himself out. And no-nonsense Hugh Henry, who won respect as convener of the parliament's watchdog audit committee, and deputy leader Johann Lamont are also possible contenders.

But John Park, the co-ordinator of Labour's shambolic Holyrood election campaign, last night ruled himself out of the running.

Senior figures are anxious to avoid a "phoney war" breaking out between the hopefuls before Gray quits - for fear it would overshadow the review.

But in a sign of the turmoil gripping Scottish Labour, behind-the-scenes moves to oust the party's top official in Scotland, general secretary Colin Smyth, were gathering pace last night.

Rumbled Ex-MSP and Holyrood minister Andy Kerr - whose defeat in East Kilbride was one of the biggest shocks of Thursday - has been linked with the job.

Labour HQ official Brian Roy - son of Motherwell MP Frank Roy - has been tipped for promotion as his deputy.

Yesterday, before the review had even begun, the post-mortems rumbled on.

On BBC Scotland's Politics Show, Macintosh said: "We thought, over the past four years, we had questioned successfully whether the SNP had delivered on their promises.

"But we were kidding ourselves on. "We should have realised our support was very soft indeed."