Democracy in action

Unlike Mr Eugenides I'm not particularly exercised by the rise of Wendy Alexander to the leadership of the Scottish Labour Party. I do have a slight quibble with this story though. It starts:

An ally of the prime minister has been elected as leader of the Scottish Labour party after leftwingers failed to gain enough support to mount a challenge.

But if there were no challengers, it was hardly an election was it? Rather like Brown himself, Alexander was appointed leader in lieu of an election. No-one elected Brown to be leader of the Labour Party; no-one elected Alexander to be leader of the Scottish Labour Party. So when the Guardian says:

Her coronation as Labour's first elected female leader came after the Campaign for Socialism failed to win support from the five MSPs needed for its candidate, Bill Butler, to stand.

It's being a bit disingenuous really. In any event, can you really be crowned as an elected leader?