WENDY ALEXANDER'S honeymoon as Scottish Labour leader has ended abruptly after one of her senior MSPs described her new spin doctor as an "idiot".

Lord Foulkes, a Labour member for Lothians, has made a complaint about the party's head of communications, Brian Lironi, for allegedly briefing against him.

The MSP also slammed former Labour first minister Henry McLeish, who has criticised his party in recent weeks, by describing him as a "strange guy" who should "shut up".

The outspoken remarks are set to overshadow Alexander's coronation as leader of Scottish Labour, which was formally confirmed last week.

Alexander wants her party's MSPs, MPs and councillors to work together in pursuit of defeating the SNP at the 2011 Holyrood election, an objective which is unlikely to be helped by infighting and name-calling.

The Foulkes row was caused by a demand the peer made last week for MSPs to receive more expenses, which led to Lironi, a former journalist and Alexander's new spin doctor, issuing a press release distancing the Labour group in Holyrood from his remarks.

In response, Foulkes told the Sunday Herald: "Despite what that idiot Lironi said, Labour MSPs agree with me." Referring to Lironi's alleged "verbal briefing", he said: "I have complained about it."

He added: "Maybe it's difficult for someone who has been a journalist to change and move to being a press officer. If I was in his position, I would have said look, the group has not yet adopted a formal position on it', but to imply or even say that members do not share the view was wrong.

"It's just a matter of explaining to people that, if they work for the group, they have to be rather more careful."

He also claimed that the Labour group, far from disagreeing with his call for more expenses, "absolutely" backed him. Foulkes, a former MP, also turned his guns on McLeish, who has made a number of criticisms of Labour this year.

He said McLeish, who resigned as first minister in 2001 after an expenses scandal, should watch his words. "I find him a strange guy," he said. "He's got a certain ability in a political sense, but not to have been first minister.

"I would think that anyone with any degree of statesmanship and diplomacy and understanding of politics, who had left under the kind of circumstances Henry did, would have felt it was appropriate to keep quiet for a good few years. I think it is time for him to shut up."

In another dig at McLeish, Foulkes said: "Loads of people at Westminster could never understand how Henry became a minister of state even. He used to brief against colleagues all the time He used to stab people in the back."

McLeish responded: "These comments are beneath contempt and don't deserve any response whatsoever. George Foulkes will have to deal with his own problems."

The peer's criticisms are set to undermine Alexander's launch today of a "virtual" think tank, designed to refresh Scottish Labour's policies.

The new venture, called Ideas Scotland, will be run by Oxford University academic Gregg McClymont and will have an "at-arms-length" relationship with the party.

A Labour spokesman declined to comment on Foulkes's comments, but a Labour group insider said: "There is no collective Labour group decision on the expenses system, so George's views on expenses are his own.

"His views on Brian Lironi are not shared by the Labour group, which is putting in place the staff and resources to expose the SNP government and its gimmick-driven, opportunist, wreckless spending commitments."