FORMER prime minister Gordon Brown will help launch his former agent's bid to win the Cowdenbeath by-election today.
Alex Rowley is contesting the vacant seat for Labour following the death of the party's MSP Helen Eadie.
The MP for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath and Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont will both be in the constituency to help Mr Rowley officially launch his campaign ahead of the poll on January 23.
Mrs Eadie died in November last year from cancer.
Mr Rowley, the leader of Fife Council, said: "This is a by-election that none of us wanted. Helen Eadie's death was sudden and she will continue to be missed.
"She was a true people's champion and a champion for Fife. Much of her work was ensuring that ordinary Fifers' voices were heard and that is a record of which Fife Labour can be proud."
He pledged to contest the by-election on the "issues facing Fife families today", including issues such as "how we get more young people into work, how we get more women into full-time work, improving childcare, building more affordable homes and how we continue to get investment into Fife".But he added: "We will also talk about how the SNP have put Scotland on pause to fight the referendum. No longer do we have a government in Edinburgh, we merely have a referendum campaign.
"Our clear message to the SNP is this: use the powers you have now to make the changes that Scots want to see."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article