The Scottish National Party is a Scottish nationalist and social democratic political party. The party holds 63 of the 129 seats in the Scottish Parliament and 43 out of the 59 Scottish seats in the House of Commons in Westminster. It has 453 local councillors of 1,227.
James Sillars is a Scottish politician and campaigner for Scottish independence. Sillars served as a Labour Party MP for South Ayrshire from 1970 to 1976. He founded and led the pro-Scottish Home Rule Scottish Labour Party in 1976,continuing as MP for South Ayrshire until he lost the seat in 1979.
Kenneth Donald Macintosh is a Scottish politician who served as the Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament from 2016 to 2021. Elected as a member of Scottish Labour,he suspended his party membership on becoming Presiding Officer. Macintosh was a Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) from 1999 to 2021,representing the Eastwood constituency from 1999 to 2016,and then the West Scotland region from 2016 to 2021.
Johann MacDougall Lamont is a Scottish Labour Co-operative politician who served as Leader of the Scottish Labour Party from 2011 to 2014. She was previously a junior Scottish Executive minister from 2004 to 2007 and Deputy Leader of the Scottish Labour Party from 2008 until her election to the leadership in 2011. In addition to her ministerial and leadership roles,she has been a campaigner on equality issues and violence against women throughout her political career.
East Renfrewshire is a constituency of the House of Commons,to the south of Glasgow,Scotland. It elects one Member of Parliament (MP) using the first-past-the-post system of voting.
John McTernan is a British political strategist and commentator. He has been a political adviser to the Labour Party.
Scottish Labour,officially the Scottish Labour Party,is the part of the UK Labour Party active in Scotland. Ideologically social democratic and unionist,it holds 22 of 129 seats in the Scottish Parliament and 2 of 59 Scottish seats in the House of Commons. It is represented by 262 of the 1,227 local councillors across Scotland. The Scottish Labour party has no separate Chief Whip at Westminster.
Ian Graham Davidson is a Scottish politician who served as chair of the Scottish Affairs Select Committee from 2010 to 2015. A member of the Scottish Labour Party and Co-operative Party,he was Member of Parliament (MP) for Glasgow South West,formerly Glasgow Pollok,from 1992 to 2015.
James Anthony Kelly is a Scottish politician who has served as General Secretary of the Scottish Labour Party since 2021. He was a Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for the Glasgow region between 2016 and 2021,having previously been MSP for Rutherglen from 2007 to 2016.
Anas Sarwar is a British politician who has served as Leader of the Scottish Labour Party since 2021. He has been a Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for the Glasgow region since 2016,having been Member of Parliament (MP) for Glasgow Central from 2010 to 2015.
The 2011 Scottish Labour Party leadership election was an internal party election to choose a new leader of the Scottish Labour Party. The election followed the announcement by Iain Gray that he would stand down as leader in the autumn of 2011 following the party's heavy defeat to the Scottish National Party in May's Scottish Parliament general election. Gray won the previous contest in September 2008.
Kezia Alexandra Ross Dugdale is a Scottish former politician who served as Leader of the Scottish Labour Party from 2015 to 2017. A former member of the Scottish Labour Party and Co-operative Party,she was a Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for the Lothian region from 2011 to 2019.
Events from the year 2014 in Scotland.
The 2014 Scottish National Party leadership election was held to choose the leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP) and First Minister of Scotland,following the resignation of Alex Salmond as first minister and leader. Nicola Sturgeon emerged as the only candidate and was elected unopposed as leader of the SNP.
The 2014 Scottish Labour Party leadership election was an internal party election to choose a new leader and deputy leader of the Scottish Labour Party,following the resignations of Johann Lamont as leader and Anas Sarwar as deputy. Lamont announced her decision in an interview with the Daily Record on 24 October,saying that she was stepping down effective immediately because the UK Labour Party treated the Scottish party as a "branch office of London". Lamont,who had won the 2011 leadership contest,thus becoming the first Scottish leader to have authority over Labour's Scottish MPs in the House of Commons as well as in the Scottish Parliament,was the second leader of a Scottish political party to resign in the wake of the 2014 independence referendum. Before her resignation,Alex Salmond announced his intention to relinquish the role of Scottish National Party (SNP) leader and First Minister. Sarwar announced his own resignation on 30 October,saying he felt it was right for the party to elect a new leadership team.
Ian Blackford is a Scottish politician who served as Leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP) in the House of Commons from 2017 to 2022. He has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Ross,Skye and Lochaber since 2015.
A general election was held in the United Kingdom on 7 May 2015 and all 59 seats in Scotland were contested under the first-past-the-post,single-member district electoral system. Unlike the 2010 general election,where no seats changed party,the Scottish National Party (SNP) won all but three seats in Scotland in an unprecedented landslide victory,gaining a total of 56 seats and taking the largest share of the Scottish vote in sixty years,at approximately 50 per cent. The Labour Party suffered its worst ever election defeat in Scotland,losing 40 of the 41 seats it was defending,including the seats of Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy and the then Shadow Foreign Secretary Douglas Alexander. The Liberal Democrats lost ten of the eleven seats they were defending,with the then Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander and former leader Charles Kennedy losing their seats. The election also saw the worst performance by the Scottish Conservative Party,which received its lowest share of the vote since its creation in 1965,although it retained the one seat that it previously held. In all,50 of the 59 seats changed party,49 of them being won by first-time MPs.
Kirsten Frances Oswald is a Scottish National Party (SNP) politician first elected as the Member of the UK Parliament (MP) for East Renfrewshire in 2015;she was unseated at the 2017 snap election but subsequently re-elected at the 2019 election. She served as the deputy leader of the SNP parliamentary party from 2020 to 2022.
Blair McDougall is a Scottish political adviser in the British Labour Party. He is best known as head strategist to the Better Together campaign during the 2014 Scottish independence referendum.
A general election was held in the United Kingdom on Thursday 8 June 2017;all 59 seats in Scotland were contested under the first-past-the-post electoral system.
