Scottish Labour Party Leadership Election
Ken Macintosh launched his candidacy for leader of the Scottish Labour Party on 12 September 2011. MSP colleagues who have so far endorsed his leadership bid include: his campaign manager Michael McMahon, Claire Baker, Mary Fee, Neil Bibby, Mark Griffin, Kezia Dugdale and Jenny Marra. Macintosh is also supported by East Renfrewshire MP Jim Murphy, co-author of the Review of the Labour Party in Scotland. Murphy and Macintosh together share the same constituency office in Clarkston, East Renfrewshire.
In an early address to party members, Macintosh said he was a devolutionist, not a unionist.
On 28 October 2011, Macintosh officially launched his leadership campaign at Cumbernauld College in North Lanarkshire. He described the 2011 Holyrood election result as a "disaster", and that the party had been too negative and if it did not change it "will consign ourselves to steady decline and years of opposition. We need to unite as a party and to start talking positively about our values, what Labour stands for and not just what we are against."
Read more about this topic: Ken Macintosh
Famous quotes containing the words scottish, labour, party, leadership and/or election:
“Better wear out shoes than sheets.”
—18th-century Scottish proverb, collected in J. Kelly, Complete Collection of Scottish Proverbs (1721)
“All’s pathos now. The body that was gross,
Rank, ravenous, disgusting in the act or in repose,
All fever, filth and sweat, its bestial strength
And bestial decay, by pain and labour grows at length
Fragile and luminous.”
—Frank Templeton Prince (b. 1912)
“This will not be disloyalty but will show that as members of a party they are loyal first to the fine things for which the party stands and when it rejects those things or forgets the legitimate objects for which parties exist, then as a party it cannot command the honest loyalty of its members.”
—Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962)
“Nature, we are starting to realize, is every bit as important as nurture. Genetic influences, brain chemistry, and neurological development contribute strongly to who we are as children and what we become as adults. For example, tendencies to excessive worrying or timidity, leadership qualities, risk taking, obedience to authority, all appear to have a constitutional aspect.”
—Stanley Turecki (20th century)
“Well, I am chiefly interested in the renomination, so don’t get disconsolate over that. If we lost the election I shall feel that the party is rejected, whereas if I fail to secure the renomination it will be a personal defeat.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)