The Labour leadership contest is finally coming to an end with speculation growing that Ed Miliband may pull off a surprising win.

I’d personally be content with this result as, although David Miliband would be an effective opposition leader and encourage me to vote Labour, Ed Miliband has a vision and set of policies that, as leader, would encourage me to join the party. An encouragement that I am confident I would resist, I hasten to add. A pale Green Labour party would always be secondary to the vibrant Greens on environmental affairs.

Anyway, despite the strong regard that proper lefties have for Ed, the Labour party is primarily in the business of winning elections, not beefing up its membership, (though of course the two enjoy a considerable, causal overlap). The pragmatic choice of the elder brother vs the idealistic choice of the younger brother has already been discussed at length (mostly in The Guardian) so there is little point in rehashing those arguments here.

However, an interesting aspect of this brewing drama is that most Scottish MPs voted for David Miliband while it is Ed Miliband who is allegedly on course to win the nomination (according to recent polling and admittedly only by a tiny 1%). What would this mean for those north of the border? We are talking about a potential future Prime Minister, as early as 2015. Would party leader Ed command Scottish MPs’ full support? Are we set for another power struggle within Labour, destabilising the leader and dangerously undermining the arguments against the coalition’s cuts? I hope not, but I cannot see Ed Balls and David Miliband serving peacefully under young Ed for four and a half long years of Opposition.

Furthermore, what is Ed’s views on independence, has anyone checked? Is this one reason why the Scottish Labour MPs largely refused to back him?

It is perhaps too early to guess what impact the regular sight of Ed Miliband with his hand on Iain Gray’s shoulder could do for the Holyrood elections. My own view is that both men do not instil confidence and rather exude a certain nervousness, something that would sit awkwardly against the cocksure Alex Salmond and/or the steely resolve of Nicola Sturgeon. Of course, a more humbler approach to politics may be what the country is looking for after the four years of the bombast and ballast from the current First Minister.

Without wanting to go off on tangents, another aspect of the coming election campaign, with either of the Milibands as leader, is that it will be unmistakably male. Annabel Goldie and Nicola Sturgeon will be rare female voices in a contest that will heavily involve Salmond, Gray, Scott, Moore, Miliband, Murphy, Mundell, Swinney, Robertson, Carmichael and, well, I could go on and on and on. What happened to that springboard of equality in the late 1990s? Have political parties taken their eye off the gender split ball?

So, the big question is – would Ed Miliband as PM-in-waiting make Scotland a Better Nation?

That is a big question, and probably too early to say, but the early signs are encouraging as his anti-War and anti-nuclear-power stances should dovetail nicely with large swathes of the Scottish public’s views. He is amiable and inspiring and seemingly capable of working consensually and constructively. The biggest question mark for me is whether Labour can hold themselves together with such a surprise winner at the helm, despite the shared focus of beating the Tories.