And that brings us to an age-old area that could prove tricky for Marra: the constitution.
Andy Burnham seemed to set hares running last week in the Commons when he suggested there was a scenario where a second Scottish independence referendum could be on the table.
His spokesperson quickly rowed back on the comments, but SNP figures couldn’t believe their luck when the door seemed to be opened (even just slightly) to a second vote.
It’s an issue that the new leader of Scottish Labour will have to engage with.
Both Marra and his opponent Fagan did, at times in this contest, seem to struggle to articulate exactly where Scottish Labour stands on the question of a second referendum.
Perhaps one area where the new leader may have a slightly easier time is managing their group of MSPs.
It would be a bit of a mean joke to say this is easy when there’s not that many of them – but there’s an element of truth here for Scottish Labour.
This wasn’t a particularly ill-tempered contest, and there weren’t vast ideological differences between Joe Fagan and Michael Marra.
