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."
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