Date is set for Cook by-election The first steps are to be taken towards holding a by-election in the seat left vacant by the death of Robin Cook.
Labour has been forced to tread constitutional by-ways because the Westminster parliament is in recess.
The contest will be signalled in the London Gazette on Friday and the writ will formally be moved next week.
Voters in the Livingston constituency, where the former foreign secretary had a majority of 13,000, will go to the polls on 29 September.
Labour is hoping for a bounce from its annual conference in Brighton that week.
The party will be represented by Mr Cook's former election agent, Jim Devine.
But the Nationalists are relying on disquiet over Iraq, as well as local Livingston controversies, to give them a boost.
Angela Constance will contest the seat for the SNP, while the Liberal Democrats have chosen Charles Dundas as their candidate and Steven Nimmo will fight for the SSP.
Mr Cook died last month after falling ill while hillwalking in the Scottish Highlands.
He resigned from Tony Blair's Cabinet in 2003 over the Iraq crisis.
