William Stewart Maxwell is a Scottish National Party (SNP) politician. He was the Minister for Communities and Sport from 2007 to 2009 and a Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for the West of Scotland region from 2003 to 2016.
Sarah Herriot Boyack is a Scottish Labour politician who has served as a Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for the Lothian region since 2019, and previously from 2011 to 2016. She formerly represented the Edinburgh Central constituency from 1999 to 2011.
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.
Eastwood is a constituency of the Scottish Parliament (Holyrood) covering part of the council area of East Renfrewshire. It elects one Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) by the first past the post method of election. It is also one of ten constituencies in the West Scotland electoral region, which elects seven additional members, in addition to the ten constituency MSPs, to produce a form of proportional representation for the region as a whole.
Elaine Agnes Smith is a former Scottish Labour politician who served as a Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for the Central Scotland region from 2016 until she stood down at the 2021 election. She was previously MSP for the Coatbridge and Chryston constituency from 1999 until 2016.
Iain Cumming Gray is a Scottish politician who served as Leader of the Scottish Labour Party from 2008 to 2011. He was the Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for the East Lothian constituency from 2007 to 2021, having previously represented Edinburgh Pentlands from 1999 to 2003. A former aid worker and teacher of mathematics and physics, Gray was first elected to the Scottish Parliament in 1999 as MSP for the Edinburgh Pentlands constituency, which he lost to Leader of the Scottish Conservative Party David McLetchie in 2003. Gray was returned to Holyrood in 2007 as MSP for East Lothian. Following Wendy Alexander's resignation as Leader of the Scottish Labour Party in 2008, Gray stood at the subsequent leadership election, and was elected with a 57.8% share of the vote in the second round.
David Jackson Carlaw is a Scottish politician who served as Leader of the Scottish Conservative Party from February to July 2020, having acted in the position since August 2019. He previously served as Deputy Leader of the Scottish Conservative Party from 2011 to 2019. He has been a Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) since 2007, first as an additional member for the West Scotland region and later for the Eastwood constituency since 2016.
Claire Josephine Baker is a Scottish Labour politician who has served as a Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for the Mid Scotland and Fife region since 2007.
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.
The 2016 Scottish parliament election was held on Thursday, 5 May 2016 to elect 129 members to the Scottish Parliament. It was the fifth election held since the devolved parliament was established in 1999. It was the first parliamentary election in Scotland in which 16 and 17 year olds were eligible to vote, under the provisions of the Scottish Elections Act. It was also the first time the three largest parties were led by women.
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.
Neil James Bibby is a Scottish Labour co-operative politician who has served as a Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for the West Scotland region since 2011.
Siobhan Marie McMahon is a Scottish Labour Party politician who served as a regional list Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for the Central Scotland region from 2011 to 2016.
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.
Alexander Andrew Penman Rowley is a Scottish politician who served as Deputy Leader of the Scottish Labour Party from 2015 to 2017 and acting leader of the party from August to November 2017. He has been a Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) since 2014, firstly for the Cowdenbeath constituency and the Mid Scotland and Fife region since 2016. He has been described as being on the political left of the party.
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.
The 2015 Scottish Labour Party leadership election was formally triggered on 16 May 2015 by the resignation of Jim Murphy as Leader of the Scottish Labour Party, which took effect on 13 June 2015, following the party's defeat at the 2015 general election. A new leader and deputy leader would be chosen following the resignations of Jim Murphy and Kezia Dugdale. In the meantime, former Scottish Labour leader Iain Gray took over as acting leader. On 15 August, Dugdale was elected to lead the party, while Alex Rowley was chosen to become her deputy.
This is a list of members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs) who were returned to the fifth session of the Scottish Parliament. Of the 129 MSPs returned at the 2016 general election, 73 were returned from first past the post constituencies with a further 56 members returned from eight regions, each electing seven MSPs as a form of mixed member proportional representation.
The Commission on Parliamentary Reform was an independent group, established in October 2016 by Ken Macintosh, the Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament. It is chaired by John McCormick and published its report, with recommendations, on 20 June 2017.
In the Scottish Parliament, the Leader of the Opposition is an unofficial title often used to describe the leader of the largest political party in the Scottish Parliament that is not in government. This leader has also been referred to as the Shadow First Minister.
